Vampire Weekend’s latest album Contra, released in January is a reigning success. Surpassing their first album in ratings, Contra has been within the Top 5 spot on Australian, Canadian, French, United Kingdom, Irish, and United States charts.

The self titled debut album was a hard act to follow, but the success it brought made the anticipation for Contra worth the wait. Absolutely whimsical is a perfect way to label it; all the songs have a light upbeat feel to them.

In comparison to the first album, the songs aren’t quite as forceful. While most songs on Vampire Weekend featured strong drums and a more solid feel, Contra has a much more airy sense to it.

The first single “Cousins” was released in October 2009, accompanied by a 7” and a quirky video. The song is one of the stronger ones on the album, featuring Ezra Koenig’s unique voice and a highly contagious beat that will inevitably be stuck in your head for at least two hours.

The album has a more electronic feel than the last, keeping to the recent trend. This is evident in “Diplomat’s Son” that is a slower song, sampling M.I.A., and showcases Koenig’s vocals.

The album as a whole took on a much more carefree feel, like the band spent a good year frivolously running around on the beach playing the marimbas.

The album opens with “Horchata,” an upbeat frilly track that has as much energy as a highly-sugared seven year old. A horchata is a kind of drink, implied in the song. “In December drinking horchata / I’d look psychotic in a balaclava.” The song goes on to rhyme the word horchata with orxata and masaba (what?). As with all songs on the CD, there’s a certain line that gets stuck in your head and in this one it’s “Here comes the feeling you thought you’d forgotten,” repeated numerous times.

This album is Vampire Weekend’s stab at society giving them so much criticism on their first album. As if to say that they’re not backing down, they’re going to do it their way, as lively as possible, and it seems to be working.