This sophomore album is more mature than the debut, but still a little empty and unmatured. That being said, it's upbeat and catchy. The synthetic sound is meshed with a typical rock band instrumentation, a sting section, and a variety of percussive sounds. The world music influence, specifically African, that dominated the debut album, here is more understated, drawing more from Afro-pop than more traditional or stereotypical African influences. Within this soundscape, political issues are subtly explored, giving the album some weight, but not enough for it to be too heavy to enjoy on a lazy summer day.
Individually there are moments that are interesting, but each song follows the same format - same melody, same progression - it gets a little repetitive. How they manipulate it is where the interest lies, but only briefly. They know what works to easily catchy the ear of the general public and they milk it. It's easily accessible, the songs are short, the album is very short, and while I'm entertained enough to listen all the way through, nothing made me go back and listen again, nothing really stood out.
First of all, Molly, I really like the idea of this blog. I can’t wait to write and comment consistently on these diverse musical areas that you are writing about. I would like to comment on how they manipulate sounds in the second album. I only disliked the ways in which they mutated and manipulated harmonic and melodic schemes when I listened to multiple songs. At first, the ways that they took simple and catchy harmonic progressions and totally twisted and turned them in different ways fascinated me(i.e. removing main instrumental sections or accenting ideas on strong beats so the second time the idea was presented it really drew you in). I couldn’t wait to hear the next song. When I did I was equally impressed but for the same reasons. I felt a bit tricked. When I heard a few more songs on the album I realized that the harmonic and melodic manipulations were not the only things that were repeated similarly. I noticed that the main melodic hook was also re-used in quite a few songs. It was almost as if the album was a big theme and variations. Only the main theme could have been any of the songs. And the variations were not given any new or complex rhythms or melody changes (which would have been nice). I came to understand that a large amount of the songs on the album sounded like re-compositions of an original idea. It still drew me in and I am a bit ashamed to say that I have been craving that sound again...I just cant get that melody that they use in every single song out of my head...maybe that was there intention because it worked on me...damit I got sucked in by Vampire Weekend!!! No pun intended.
ReplyDelete