Contra

Vampire Weekend delivered one of the breakout albums of 2008 with their self-titled debut. The young New York 4-piece took the indie world by storm with their incredible blend of Western pop & popular African music, like some kind of Paul Simon re-imagined for the 21st century. Now, the group present their highly anticipated follow up, 'Contra'.

Also released on famed XL Recordings, the band claim they sound "more like Vampire Weekend" on 'Contra', which is at once bustling with fresh ideas & immediately familiar; it's heavily layered but taut & kinetic; it chews ravenously through sound palettes & rhythms, yet it's nimble & assured; it's still breezy, yet it smoulders with a newfound emotional heft. 'Contra' lands a powerful blow.

'Contra' explodes any reductive notions of what constitutes Vampire Weekend's sound and aesthetic. The varied influences here include third-wave ska, the Hallelujah Chicken Run Band, Brazilian baile funk, Congolese thumb pianos, Repo Man, Sublime's 40 Oz. to Freedom, reggaeton, bachata, Bollywood, Philip Roth, Beethoven, NYC 1983, dancehall & the Beastie Boys' 2nd LP, Paul's Boutique. All of these influences are incorporated with subtlety & sophistication, woven together into a seamless fabric of references that, heard in full, resembles nothing so much as itself.