Vampire Weekend: Contra Review

Well, the truthful answer, is no… they cannot. In 2008, New Yorkers, “Vampire Weekend” vowed to “avoid [almost every] rock n roll cliché” and released their self titled debut album. This album was well received by both the American and European market. With crowd favourites such as “Mansard Roof”, “Oxford Comma” and “A-Punk” it’s not hard to see how the band’s fresh, almost reggae vibe was such a success. It even was ranked 56th best album of the 21st century by Rolling Stone magazine.

Which brings us to “Contra”; the band’s second LP. What with the increase in music downloads nowadays, the backbone of the music industry, that is going out and buying a “real” record is slowly dying away. In order for the CD to not completely disappear, much as the cassette and Vinyl Record had done before, bands are really required to produce top-notch value for money, or else they put themselves at risk of completely killing what once was the highlight of anyone’s day. Whether it be the working class kid’s few pounds he had worked up for months to get, all just for The Jam’s latest album, or a lower-middle class lad popping down to buy Oasis’ latest CD; the sale of “something to hold in your hands” was big.

Having said that band’s must produce good music to keep it all alive, Vampire Weekend, regrettably have not done that. “Contra” is mediocre at best. Despite many positive reviews, in this writer’s opinion, it did not live up to its expectations. The songs are very plain and much the same as the band’s first album, this is not what we wanted. A very disappointing effort when compared with the group’s first LP. It is hard to talk about this new album without bearing in mind how refreshing it was to hear the first, and so this may make it seem less of a success than it actually is. But this overshadowing disappointment should not let us forget that Vampire Weekend are still one of the most innovative groups of today, and let’s all hope for an improvement with the 3rd record, with a little luck, they’ll be back on track before too long.