30th of August 2009, the day I fell in love with Vampire Weekend.

Their first album, Vampire Weekend, was immense, simple as that. Nearly every song could have been released as a single, it was fresh, it was new and it was fun. I didn’t like it too much to start with, but seeing them at Reading Festival changed my mind, they were absolutely brilliant live and that performance made me fall in love with their album, it also got me so psyched up for their next album that when I heard it had leaked, a little bit of wee came out. Contra isn’t as quirky as their previous release, it’s almost as if they’ve lost some of their charm with this album, but that doesn’t mean it any worse. This album is a lot more solid, most people interested will have heard Horchata (click for free download of track) and Cousins … whilst Cousins wouldn’t seem out of place on the first album, Horchata would be, and seeing as it’s the album opener, its almost a message from the band that you should expect something different from this (not that that’s a bad thing!).

The album opens with Horchata and moves into White Sky, a pretty safe opening pair (definitely a slower start that the first album) and then goes into Holiday, the first “classic” sounding VW song on the album, it’s a little fun song which I’m in love with. The fourth track is California English, another fun song (if you haven’t realized by now, I’m pretty much going to call all VW songs ‘fun’) which oddly uses autotune, I’m not slating it like the rest of the internet has seem to done, I quite like it, it just sounds out of place. They then bring the tempo back down with Taxi Cab, probably the only song I don’t love off of this album. This is followed by Run, another brilliant song which I can’t slate at all, it’s not perfect but nothing is.

The first 6 tracks of the album build up to this combo of 4 songs, starting from Cousins and ending at I Think Ur A Contra that really separates this album from the last. I enjoyed every song from their first, but they can’t compete with how good these 4 songs are. You’ve all heard Cousins, you know how good it is, I don’t even need to bother explaining myself. Giving Up The Gun is the bands best song, period. It’s anthemic and I can’t wait to see them perform this live. Diplomat’s Son samples M.I.A’s Hussel and again is just such a strong track, this is the song that’ll be stuck in my head for months on end. The album ends on I Think Ur A Contra, not the most exciting track, but that doesn’t matter, it ends the album off beautifully and leaves me wanting so much more.

My main criticism of this album is that it’s so short, just like their last album, 10 tracks just isn’t enough (especially when only 1 song is over 4 minutes long!). Regardless of that, well played VW, my album of the year so far, better yet, my album of the decade!

Vampire Weekend – Cousinz (Toy Selectah Mex-More Remix)

Back in July I posted the original to this tune by the somewhat forgotten rapper of G.O.O.D Music; Consequence. It’s weird really, Consequence and GLC were once the dudes of G.O.O.D, always getting feature spots on Kanye’s albums and Remixes and shit but well, ever since Cudi and Hudson have come, those two have seemingly faded into the background.

However, Consequence tweeted the above pic a few days back saying that the remix was coming soon. That created the buzz. Every G.O.O.D member on the track barring Hudson.

Fire.

Consequence – Whatever U Want (G.O.O.D Music Remix ft. Kanye, Kid Cudi, Common, Big Sean, John Legend)

This tune has sent the internet crazy. Ever since that picture appeared everywhere on the internet which was later revealed as the artwork for Vampire Weekends latest album ‘Contra,’ indie fans and more have been eagerly anticipating any song leaks from the record. Horchata was okay. This is very good.

I really like it.