Sophomore Slump Avoided

Vampire Weekend has two things to avoid.  One imagined, one not.  The former is the Twilight backlash on the part of the haters who are anti-Vampire anything.  Okay, I made that up.  The latter is very real and is rarely avoided by bands who achieve success on their debut albums.  Debut albums are planned for during a bands entire life up to that point.  They can work out the kinks overs many years and pick the strongest songs from their library to that point.  The comes the follow up.

Far too often, the follow up album hits with a thud.  The Pretenders II, October, Don't Look Back, Candy-O and many other second albums showed bands that released lesser albums after incredibly strong debuts.  That brings us to Vampire Weekend.  Their self-titled debut was successful but I felt they were ripe for the Sophomore Slump.  This week, their new album Contra is served up.  How does it fare?

I would say overall, it fares very well.  Do they avoid the Sophomore Slump?  Yes.  Is it for everyone?  Maybe, maybe not.  The world music sound that they brought to their first album is back in force.  I hear a lot more synth in this album than I recall in the first album.  A number of reviews note the "Graceland-esque" sound of the album.  The vocals even have a Paul Simon quality on several songs.  I don't feel this is a trouble spot but some might.  There is a lot worse influence a band can use.

All is not perfect.   The running time of the album is rather short at about 35 minutes with the collection consisting of 10 songs.  That's about it.  I like this album.  The hooks are plenty and the energy flowing full on. 

Vampire Weekend has avoided the sophomore slump and has a second album that may well be stronger than their great debut album.