VAMPIRE WEEKEND – Contra

For all the good-will it generated, there was a chafing discontent surrounding Vampire Weekend’s ascent to prominence. Somewhere between the Leno appearances and the critic’s top 10 lists, it seemed that these well-dressed Brooklynites were doomed to flounder in the massive shadow of their unparagoned debut. And sure enough, the second effort Contra doesn’t match the blue-moon, uncanny aura of the first record, but it does manage to have 10 catchy, extensively influenced, contiguously gratifying, and all-together really good songs.

Although never fully departing from its upbeat, aristocratic demeanor, Contra has Vampire Weekend a little more morose than their sprightly, Oxford-blind disposition we saw in 2008. Sure, the carefree optimism of tracks like “California English” and “White Sky” are here, but there’s also “Taxi Cab,” a mesmerizing, somewhat bittersweet ode to depleted love. Ezra’s buoyant yelp is replaced with a hushed, confrontational whiff carried by hovering strings and movie-credit piano. The track inches through its 4 minutes at a withdrawn, methodical, and very un-Vampire Weekend pace — it doesn’t feel forced, or shanghaied as an obligatory change-up amidst the record’s jaunty conventions, and stands as the paramount sample of the band’s songwriting evolution.

Contra doesn’t have the left-field splendor of the self-titled album, but few things do. It does however join the ranks of similarly minded sophomore records (Interpol’s Antics being the most obvious example) of being effectively self-sufficient, regardless of what context you assign it.

(XL Recordings 304 Hudson Street, 7th Floor, New York, 10013)