New York-based Vampire Weekend have confirmed the title and release date of their second album. Called ‘Contra‘, it will be released on January 11th in the UK through XL Recordings. It will feature ten tracks, some of which were performed at this year’s Reading/Leeds Festivals.
The group, which consists of singer/guitarist Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij on keys, drummer Chris Tomson and bassist Chris Baio, have outlined plans for a more varied and different approach from their eponymous debut in numerous interviews over the past few months. In one such interview, with Spin magazine in April, the group discussed their new approach: “One thing that’s interesting about this album is that, to me, I think it has a wider range of feelings and tempos than the first album,” frontman Koenig said. “There are faster songs than what you’ve heard – or what at least feels like our fastest song we’ve ever made – and also (the) slowest we’ve ever made. There are songs where I’m singing very high, and I think also the lowest I’ve ever sang on a VW album.”
Vampire Weekend were formed in 2006 after the members met at Columbia University. They took their name from an amateur film made by Koenig. In 2008, they released their self-produced debut, which featured hit singles such as ‘A-Punk‘ and ‘Oxford Comma‘.
Later in their Spin interview, the band discussed a few tracks which are set to feature on the new album. ‘Taxi Cab’ is said to be one of the new tracks which best showcases their new direction: “With ‘Taxi Cab’, I think it was important that we made a song that was mellow, because if you listen to our first album, there’s a certain level of pumped-up-ness,” Batmanglij said. “I guess at some point this spring, I got obsessed with Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’, and I just wanted to hear that over and over again. And so hopefully ‘Taxi Cab‘ will connect with that, somehow, in some way.”
They also discussed another new track, ‘White Sky‘, which is said to be one of the more familiar sounding tracks on the record. “That song came together in a way that none of our older songs ever have,” Koenig said. “Rostam made a beat and sent it to us, and I spent some time writing lyrics and a melody to it, and then we put it together into what it is now. On that level, it is very distinct from what we’ve done.”
Other tracks rumoured to be on the album include ‘Run’, ‘Diplomat’s Son’, ‘Giving Up The Gun’, ‘Horchata’ and ‘Holiday’.
Here are the guys visiting Conan in NYC last year:
