Contra - Vampire Weekend
There are bands that evolve with every release and there are bands that find a solid formula and stick with it. There are some bands that the evolution is important (The Who) and some that should never change their formula because it works (AC/DC).
Vampire Weekend chose to try and be the former when the latter would have been better. I am not saying Contra is bad, it is actually pretty good, I am just saying it pales in comparison to their debut. Vampire Weekend has traded string arrangements and fun vocals for electronic noise and auto tuning. Again these are not inherently bad things and it isn’t true they are completely gone. Taxi Cab for example has a good use of both electronic beats and strings, but it doesn’t have the same charm of the songs off the last album. And California English sounds like it could be on a Black Eyed Peas album vocal wise (though it is lyrically and arrangement wise one of my favorites). They used to have this great sound that was somewhere between Peter Gabriel and The Kinks. Now the freshness isn’t there.
I actually really like Contra, but this is the wrong step for Vampire Weekend. There are plenty of bands that do the electronic stuff better. There are maybe one or two songs that I think are worthwhile when compared to the previous album. One is the aforementioned Taxi Cab. And the other is Giving Up the Gun which feels like the only real solid transition between the old songs and the new (even though it feels like it would evolving into the debut, you did this backwards guys!).
Verdict: Thumbs up (tepidly but still up)
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