Already a fan of Vampire Weekend, I had high expectations for their new album, Contra.
Released early last week, the album pulls from African beats and West Indian harmonies; it’s versatile and entertaining. The band’s freshman album, self-titled, can be described as poppy.
Similarly, their sophomore album really grabs your attention; the guitar riffs are fast paced, the drums are loud and the vocals are spot-on.
The single they released back in November, “Cousins” pulls you in at the beginning of the song when front man Ezra Koenig repeatedly yelps out “ohh” and “hey” in the background of a funky guitar melody.
“Giving Up The Gun,” is vigorous and full of life, while “Taxi Cab” is slow-paced and meaningful.
Vampire Weekend does a good job of making its music entertaining and not just poetic fluff. Don’t get me wrong, the songs have meaning, the band just doesn’t express it in the same somber ways we’re so used to.
The Indie-rock band got its start in New York; the band members attended Columbia University and gained fame over the years in the U.K.
They wanted to break the social traditions of Ivy League haughtiness and self-produced their first album.
Vampire Weekend definitely succeeded in breaking the norm when they went into explicit detail bashing the Oxford comma in the song off their first album, Oxford Comma. Other songs, including “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” also break traditional song lyrics when the singer overtly — yet very melodically — drops the f-bomb.
It’s lyrics like these that grab your attention and nifty guitar riffs that keep you drawn in to the unique sound that is Vampire Weekend.
I have always considered Vampire Weekend a band that you would most likely hear on MTV-U—they attract a largely college-student fan base—so I was surprised to hear that Contra debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 list.
Although I was initially happy their album did so well, I was slightly disheartened; my underground Indie-rock band was no longer a secret.
I guess you could say that I’m proud of Vampire Weekend for pulling such a large fan base without selling out. They stayed close to the roots of their first album while still being able to experiment in their second album.
For those who were wondering about the meaning behind the name Vampire Weekend, it was the name of an amateur film Koenig made his freshman year at Columbia.
