Listen to Vampire Weekend’s ‘Contra’

For the next week, leading up to it’s January 12th release, you can stream Contra, the new album from Vampire Weekend, courtesy of NPR Music.

From the NPR site: “It’s been two years since the deafening blog buzz surrounding Vampire Weekend culminated in a self-titled debut album. Catchy, clever and critically acclaimed, it brought the plucky young band to the tips of indie-rock tongues, and well beyond that: Vampire Weekend sold nearly 500,000 copies in the U.S. But it also left questions about the group’s long-term prospects. The inevitable backlash settled on a surface misreading of the band: rich white boys in obnoxious shirts fumbling around with West African rhythms. More importantly, could this clean-cut bunch with a lean set list, bound at least for temporary limelight, churn out a worthy second album? How long would audiences approve, and how deep did the creative well run?”

Listen to the record and then respond to those rhetorical questions.  Suffice to say we’re looking forward to having the band here for Big Ears 2010.