Contra

Keep in mind that the people who engage in tireless naysaying on the subject of Vampire Weekend are the same sort of reverse-classist/anti-intellectual types who would have denied smartypants preppies Talking Heads the right to share the CBGB stage with authentic rock & roll lumpenproles like The Ramones back in the '70s. You'd think they'd at least have gotten their fill of cultural-imperialism accusations with Paul Simon's post-'70s output, but apparently, Soweto-style guitar riffs still bear a mighty moral tariff for uppity Americans. Kudos to Vampire Weekend, then, for sticking to their guns and turning out a sophomore album that pretty much picks up where the last one left off - a giddy mix of Graceland-era Simon, Heads circa Fear of Music, and XTC jamming with the English Beat. If that amalgam seemed unappetizing to you last time around, then don't come a-knockin' at Contra's door, but don't come knocking it either, because Ezra Koenig and company prove even more masterful at pulling it off than they were before. And if the giddy, geeky fervor of "Cousins" doesn't make you leap up and down like a kangaroo with a pin in its posterior, you should scurry to the nearest physician and get checked for a pulse.