By Pete Donahue

There is a very good chance you’ve already heard about Vampire Weekend’s new album, Contra. Perhaps you’ve heard the Brooklyn, New York, Ralph Lauren-clad Ivy Leaguers have managed to live up to the success of their 2008 debut. Maybe you’ve heard Contra‘s lead single, “Cousins,” but are skeptical the band can deliver another album of world music-inspired pop goodness. Considering Vampire Weekend’s meteoric rise to stardom over the last two years (later met with some hipster backlash), Contra was accompanied by a considerable amount of hype, skepticism and ambivalence. But after two weeks-plus with the new LP, I can say Contra absolutely lives up to the hype and delivers even more.

For Vampire Weekend fans who backlashed against the backlash against the band, their loyalty to the quartet is graciously rewarded. While the Paul Simon/Graceland comparisons will probably never die, the band continue to channel worldly, poppy guitar hooks and under-appreciated storytelling on Contra, but have proved they have the ability to offer much more. For example, album opener “Horchata” starts with an excellent melody delving up the beginnings of a vivid story backed with a heap of Latin-influenced percussion, including marimba. The very guitar that made songs like “A-Punk” and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” such lovable tracks is hardly in sight, taking a back seat to a string section and a considerable amount programmed synth samples, both of which make several appearances on the album.

The album opener is important because it exposes listeners to several re-occurring themes. Kicking off your highly-anticipated LP with “In December drinking horchata/I’d look psychotic in a balaclava/Winter’s cold is too much to handle/Pincher crabs that pinch at your sandals” will certainly come across as daft to some, but Contra tells the story of better times in better places than where our narrator appears to be now. I recently read an interview with singer/guitarist Ezra Koeing where he describes the lyrics as a careful look at when the privileged’s highs come crashing down. While the band’s first album was all about the good times and care-free living, Contra examines what happens when the good times fade away and reality sets in. Koeing is an under-estimated lyricist because his social commentary often gets overlooked by the poppy, hooky elements of Vampire Weekend’s songs. “Holiday,” an organ-led old school ska jam (think “Oxford Comma“) is arguably the most upbeat song on Contra. Armed with the ability to pack a dance floor like “A-Punk” can, “Holiday” reads more like an insecure rich girl’s diary when faced with the realities of “the real world.” “I can’t forget how bad it gets when I’m counting on my tea/But if I wait for a holiday/Could it stop my fear?/To go away on a summer day never seemed so clear.”

“California English,” with its clever, start/stop rhythm and western African-influenced guitar interludes, features Koeing in a yelping, stream-of-conscious rants loaded with reverb and a small hint of auto-tune. Picture our narrator as a spoiled rich brat as she complains “Contra Costa, Contra Mundum contradict what I say/Living at the French Connection but we’ll die in L.A.” Yet the band also offer a counter observation to the upper-class with a day dream of what it’d be like to escape from everything negative we’ve ever encountered on “Run.” With a soaring chorus featuring a sprinkled synth melody that sounds like it was played on that Casio you got when you were eight years old, Koening (or another narrating character?) wonders aloud “Every dollar counts and every morning hurts/We mostly work to live until we live to work/She said ‘You know, there’s nowhere else to go/But change in rows, it struck me that the two of us could run.’” Perhaps “Run” is even “California English’s” narrator unable to cope with a “real” job; what better way to escape than to simply run away? The truth is, Koeing and Co. offer enough to allow listeners to formulate multiple lyrical interpretations., showing Vampire Weekend are intelligent and crafty as much as they are catchy and fun.

Another re-occurring theme throughout Contra that makes the album a desirable sophomoric release is multi-instrumentalist/producer Rostam Batmanglij’s production. Simply put – more synthesizers, sampling and beat programming. Fans of Batmanglij’s Discovery project with Ra Ra Riot’s Wes Miles will certainly appreciate Vampire Weekend’s second LP over their first. “Giving Up the Gun” contains thick, arpeggiating 80′s synths scurrying over a thundering big beat with various hints of additional synth programming underneath. The song is the closest we’ve heard the band come to full-on drum & bass, yet hardly comes across as ironic, new-wave revivalism. The song is also Vampire Weekend fans’ ideal dance party starter that doesn’t lean heavy on the guitars.

Clocking in at over six minutes, “Diplomat’s Son” is a very unique blend of samples, strings and synthesizers and tribal drums, inducing a hazy raggaeton/dance hall vibe that M.I.A. would be right at home rapping over. Like the latin-influenced percussion on “Horchata,” “Diplomat’s Son” displays Vampire Weekend’s further embrace of world music outside of Africa. The lyrics complement the song’s exotic sound, as if the track is a memory of a ritzy vacation when life was much…easier: “That night I smoked a joint with my best friend/We found ourselves in bed. When I woke up he was gone/He was the diplomat’s son, It was ‘81.”

When discussing Vampire Weekend, it is important not to overlook one of the band’s obvious strengths, one that thankfully pops up quite often in the duration of Contra – fun. By now, you’ve probably already jammed out to the highly-energetic “Cousins,” a wickedly sharp pop song with frantic drumming courtesy of drummer Chris Tomson that borrows a bit from Stuart Copeland’s style. If all you needed was “A-Punk” to reel you into the band’s first album, “Cousins” is likely all you need this time around. “White Sky,” the obvious choice for the album’s second single, ties in Koeing’s lyrics, Batmanglij’s digital-leaning programming, and a good-time aesthetic into one excellent jam. With it’s looped, bubbly synths interweaving with a snappy digital back beat, Koeing croons things like “Look up at the buildings, imagine who might live there/Imagining your Wolfords in a ball upon the sink there” before culminating in a falsetto that more than adequately acts as a sugary chorus.

So I’ve attested to the plethora of positives Contra offers. After appearing to suffer from a backlash from some circles (jealousy, perhaps?), Vampire Weekend did the only thing they knew how to do, the one thing that could silence the unjust criticism and backlash the backlash. They made not just a great sophomore album, they made a knockout album, period.

Discuss: What do you think of the new album? Is Contra their best work to date?

Buy: Vampire Weekend – Contra