Vampire Weekend is in the joke

“Contra,” Vampire Weekend’s second album to date, is covered by a pretty blonde girl in a yellow Polo-collar popped, vacant-eyes staring out at the viewer. Says front man Ezra Koenig to MTV’s James Montgomery of the curious photograph, “We know where the image came from, but we’re not being very specific about her.” He continues, “It’s almost like a Rorschach test, because some people get very mad when they see a white blonde girl in a Polo shirt. It makes you realize how much you can imagine about somebody when you know nothing about them, based on only a few signifiers.”

It’s easy to guess who Koenig and Vampire Weekend are poking fun of here–namely a very vocal and sometimes hostile faction of critics who have written the band off for their Ivy League background and meddling with various musical genres as some indication of “bourgie” wanderlust. (Though while much has been made of the band’s occasional African excursions, detractors seem curiously unable to identify which genre is being so ignorantly mis-appropriated-soukous, high-life, township jive?)

And that’s a real shame, because “Contra” is a fantastic record, and not only because it challenges many of those assumptions. Musically, it’s tremendously polished with arrangements drawing from an even vaster globe of influences – baile funk, dancehall, kalimba thumb piano, just to name a few – that remain glued in place with indispensable harmonies and lyrics. Songs like “California English” and “Diplomat’s Son” showcase a real progression for the band in sheer complexity of craft alone. Yes, some of the obvious starting points, like ska and reggaeton, are still there; however, “Contra” sounds like anything but a rehash of old formulas. The single “Cousins,” for example, doesn’t differ too much from the thumping instrumentations of Vampire Weekend’s “A-Punk,” yet it is altogether more compressed, with Chris Baio’s bass rolling faster and faster as Ezra’s voice endeavors to keep up. The sensibilities played out on “Run” and “Giving Up the Gun” are as close to mainstream as anything on the debut, and still, they seem to reinterpret the fabric of contemporary synth pop and R&B, respectively.

The genre-checking arrangements are only half the story, for what “Contra” does so impressively is leave behind Vampire Weekend’s tongue-in-cheek impulse to frame college experience and prep school malaise. That’s not to say the p-word (OK, “pretentious”) isn’t going to be thrown around anymore; it’s just wielded in a different manner. Instead of the Khyber Pass and Dharamasala, we get balaclavas and “sweet carob rice cakes.” A retirement of the proper noun? Perhaps.

But Vampire Weekend, after all, is still singing about the thin line between remaining true to yourself and being a total hack. It’s a risky motif, especially since Koenig’s lyrics can feel almost maudlin at times as he daringly struggles to mix good taste with earnest sentiment. But this proves to be too much of a worry. What makes Vampire Weekend relevant is how self-aware they really are, how the ascent of the oxford comma or organic toothpaste (“California English”) is more often about the incredulous image than an honest political statement. Make fun of Vampire Weekend all you want, but they’ve already beat you there.

Grade: A-

Download (don’t steal): “Diplomat’s Son” by Vampire Weekend