Turning on the radio can be painful. Turn it to public radio and you have monotonous liberal reporters, modern Mexican pop that hasn't evolved since the beginning of the twentieth century but still only lags behind in production quality by a decade or two, and once in a while some good jazz. Turn it to the rock station and you'll be bombarded by Miller Highlife drenched corporate metal ranging anywhere from modern power ballads to coked out hair bands. The r&b station is plagued by wave after wave of auto-tune hooks and mind numbing gangsta rap. Even the alternative station has little to offer, filling the airwaves with garage bands made up of angst ridden effeminate high school boys, and classics from the 90s you've heard over, and over . . . and over. But, once in a while on the alternative station, a new artist shows up with something interesting to offer.

For the past year you might have heard the name Vampire Weekend attached to a bubbly indie tune with a classic punk rock bassline, tropical harmonies, yet another effeminate singer boy, and a soft synth playing Bach inspired textures. Vampire Weekend formed at Columbia University in New York. They produced their first full length album independently, but were picked up by XL Recordings shortly afterward. Through music blogs and other internet venues they were able to gain momentum enough to hit the billboards hard and fast. Their first album is put together relatively well with a generally upbeat lo-fi pop sound aided by occasional eastern rhythms and Baroque textures. The standard indie band instrumentation is dominant, including a drummer, Christopher Tomson, a bassist, Chris Baio, a keyboardist (composer and engineer), Rostam Batmanglij, and a guitarist who whines in a valiant attempt to sing, Ezra Koenig. Beyond the four core members of the band, a small group of musicians also contributed string and percussion instruments. It becomes evident upon listening to this release that the group deliberated carefully to make this work a cohesive whole, and had a clear concept of how they wanted to present themselves as a band, which is an important consideration for a self-titled release. The four tracks from this album released as singles catch the ear in a benign way, making them a pleasant surprise whenever they pop up on the radio rather than an assault of power chord banality and melodic sobbing that dominates the indie market.

At the beginning of this year, January 11, Vampire Weekend released another album. This time, it was given the production value one would expect from a band signed by a well-known label, of which the band took full advantage. Contra strikes observers initially with its cover, a picture of a pretty blond in a yellow polo with a poorly managed collar. The photo is highly saturated, as if shot with a polaroid, and the background is a white wall angled away irrelevantly. However, the most annoying detail is the font of the album title and band name, which is obviously the same as the font for the first album, and more importantly, the same as the narrative text used by Wes Anderson in his brilliant and trend-setting films. Don't misunderstand me; my complaint isn't that this particular font has some sort of sanctimony the Weekenders have violated. The use of this text seems like a shameless pandering to that trendiness Anderson has developed, and a weak way to declare the band's clever quaintness. Upon opening the CD insert, one discovers the lyrics printed in a nondescript font on what appears to be (and feels like) plain blue-lined graphing paper. Though the insert is thick, besides the lyrics that take up two pages per (short) song, it offers only one picture, displaying the band arranged in no particular way with orange and blue smears and more light saturation, suggesting either poor film developing skills or poor photoshop skills. Essentially, the packaging has a "minimalist" vibe that really just comes off as laziness. Having discovered also that the iTunes release of the album included two bonus tracks, my irritation with their CD release reached a peak. Why would the record company offer a bonus for purchasing the already preferred medium without at least offering that same bonus for purchasing the CD? The fact that the album "artwork" is less than compelling makes buying the physical copy seem completely pointless. Are record companies actively pushing CDs into clearance bins? If so, why the fuck do they take on the liability of releasing new CDs in the first place?

Despite the highly flawed marketing and product value of the CD, the music inside is worth a peak at the very least. The album begins with a song as refreshing as its title, "Horchata". Koenig and Batmanglij start the ditty off together following the same tropical melody, one singing it with slightly deranged lyrics, the other using a xylophone sound. Right as the first verse ends, the drums, auxiliary percussion and electronics explode into a celebratory raucous that evokes images of a colorful beach parade. As the tune continues, the verses overlap and extend each time around, making a lyrical chorus unnecessary and allowing the explosive beach parade to function as the hook. I also noticed throughout this tune and the entire album varying instrumental density, dynamics, and instrumentation in each repetition of a verse. The album continues with "White Sky, " a floaty piece that starts off primarily electronic, and slowly evolves into Weekend's more familiar guitar instrumentation, with some acoustic shuffle drumming that builds up and incorporates stronger accents and crashes as the song progresses. All the while, the electronic aspect of the song never loses its shininess, and is eventually reinforced by Koenig's guitar work on the high end of the fretboard. "Holiday" feels like a step down in creativity. Though the music still remains intricate, layered and interesting, the hook still feels contrived, as the title suggests. "California English" is next, introduced by what sounds like a recording of a police scanner. This tune explodes rather quickly, with colors and layers cascading through a march-like driving drum beat. It also takes many drum breaks embellished with off-beat string patterns, both bowed and pizzicato, and eerie choir backgrounds. The lead vocals change in this piece, with quicker rhythmic patterns, and a use of auto-tune which, through some miracle, comes off as tasteful.

"Taxi Cab," my favorite from this CD, changes the pace of the album by offering a slower tempo with softer instrumentation. The best part is the string instrument (either a cello or a viola, hard to tell through the effects) softly floating underneath everything in a highly dynamic eighth note pattern that reminds me of a quica rhythm. The bass drum and synth bass are also very soft, and during the rhythmic breaks the keyboard prances along in Batmanglij's typical way, creating a meandering, day dream quality to the track. "Run" follows with a jutting guitar riff, and sets the album back on its energetic, tropical path. The lyrics express a fantasy of leaving life behind and starting new. The hook for this piece is its most striking attribute, built up by a vocal chorus and driven by heavily accented snare and an arcing keyboard texture. "Cousins" is next, and this is the album's first radio single. It shares more in common than any other track on Contra with Weekend's debut album, dominated by Koenig's thin, clean guitar thrashing and bobbing with a bouncy bassline. The drums drive hard, again with heavy snare attention. Between verses the guitars pick away rapid-fire and climb down back to the verse's beat. During the chorus, Koenig and Tomson hit punctuating accents under the chorus's circular mantra.

The next two tracks are a bit disappointing. Though they still have pretty, produced sounds sugaring them up, and the layers are still well lain, the more common core of their structures depart from the rest of the album. "Giving up the Gun" starts off with a cool, tribal beat, but quickly turns into a very typical pop song with a boring climb down chord progression, and a highly repetitive vocal pattern. "Diplomat's Son" also uses an uncharacteristically common structure, coming off as standard dub reggae with a slightly different beat, and electronic rather than traditional instrumentation. Clocking in at six minutes, it is also the longest track on the album, which in turn makes it the most boring, and very skippable. The last track, "I Think Ur a Contra" is almost a redemption for the two songs preceding it. Unlike every other tune on the album, the percussion is extremely minimal. The beginning is haunted by an atmospheric, airy electronic sound and supported by twinkly high-end guitar while Koenig sings in a way that seems almost without meter. Only after about thirty seconds into the song does the bass drum kick in on one and three accompanied by an acoustic piano rhythm. Slowly, the song builds more layers, never becoming cacophonous, but merely adding buoyancy and weight in turns. The finished product is a song that hangs in the air and branches out in seemingly random ways that resolve outside the form and feels as open and refreshing as a breath of ocean air.

Vampire Weekend's second album displays their growth as musicians from their first. As a whole, their self-titled release is probably more cohesive and consistently good overall, but Contra is much more diverse in its influences, and champions songs that are more individually impressive. The main problems with Contra are probably due to the massive budget difference between it and their debut, and may have been rushed by a deadline, or maybe even pure over-excitement at having access to so many new tools. They explore electronics and different instruments more, they use more dynamic mechanisms and texture variations, and ramped their energy up exponentially. Of course, they still have a lot to learn. Though I admire his lyrical creativity, Koenig's voice still puts me on edge, teetering on that treacherous line between singing and whining most fru-fru little boy indie singers cross so readily, and should practice more to improve his floppy attack on guitar. Batmanglij should also explore more melodic patterns, as the constant stepwise motion he uses for texture can be monotonous and predictable. And, of course, please put some effort into your album artwork, guys. With a little more experience, Vampire Weekend may at some point create music adults can listen to comfortably.

Published Sunday, 13th February 2010 - Written by Jeff Benjamin