by Cori

Picture this. It’s August 2007, standing outside a shabby little dive bar on Van Buren waiting for a show to start. Everyone is excited- the band has a unique sound, the songs are intelligent and we all know the words, even though the self-titled debut album won’t be released for another five months. The band is Vampire Weekend, and they experience overnight success.

Moving back into the present, the band has just released their second album, Contra. The naming of the album seems oddly appropriate- as though it were the rebellious teenage phase of the band’s growth. Maybe the boys are still suffering the fatigue of success, but Contra strikes me as lazy, lackluster, and predictable. Let us examine it closer, shall we?

The first track, Horchata, was released well in advance of the album. This song is incredible in that they managed to somehow distill everything great about their style into one homogenized, repetitive piece of crap. I hated it the first time I heard it, and I hate it now. The rest of the album falls pretty flat, with a few notable exceptions. Giving Up the Gun is the only song on the album that I truly enjoyed, and the delicate piano melody of Taxi Cab softened my cold black heart enough that I could almost forgive the band for the vocoder voice effects ala Kanye West in California English. Almost.

I had high hopes for Vampire Weekend- they put on a great live show and that first album was a breath of fresh air. For now, I am going to cross my fingers, put Contra away to gather dust, and hope that this is that mythical sophomore slump- not the direction of growth for this young band.