Vampire Weekend: Contra (Vinyl LP)

Contra pulls off a series of impressive feats: it's bustling with fresh ideas, and yet it sounds immediately familiar; it's heavily layered but taut and kinetic; it chews ravenously through sound palettes and rhythms, and yet it's nimble and assured; it's still breezy, and yet it smolders with a newfound emotional heft.

Vampire Weekend's music and lyrics serve to both construct and deconstruct a world around them. Like the word 'contra' itself, the songs are layered with meaning and invite interpretation. With this album, Vampire Weekend have staked out an alien territory - literate, crackling, alive - that's unmistakably their own.

1. Horchata
2. White Sky
3. Holiday
4. California English
5. Taxi Cab
6. Run
7. Cousins
8. Giving Up The Gun
9. Diplomat's Son
10. I Think Ur A Contra