Hadouken! - For The Masses (2010, Surface Noise)

Hadouken! - For The Masses

(2010, Surface Noise)

Have Hadouken! finally lost their mind? I’ve been following this band ever since their first track That Boy That Girl and have to admit that everything they released is super catchy. I wasn’t completely satisfied with their first album as it seemed to be based around those first few tracks with a lot of fillers in-between. Hoping they had fixed this error and would present a out of this world follow-up this year I was really disappointed when For the Masses finally dropped. The “dark” visuals on the cover and the bands promo packs show the distinctive new direction H! is heading. Instead of glowsticks, big smiles and neon colors it’s all about suburbs, illegal parties and thunderstorms this time. It seems like they threw everything they stood for out of the window, just compare the covers of both albums and you’ll know what I mean. Not only visually but musically they changed in the same way. This album almost feels like some DJ went insane with a lot of different electronic styles an added some average vocal samples on top. The whole concept of them being a band is completely lost on here. To add to the drama, all the electronics are pretty cheesy and the dark mood is only partially achieved, ruined by the oversaturated beeps most of the time. Never have I heard such a bad Prodigy rip-off. It’s obvious they want to hop on the hype created by those guys but the overslept when talent was handed out. Is their nothing good to say about this album? Well yes, first single M.A.D. is a pretty catchy track and the two remixes of Turn The Lights Out(not sure if they will appear on the actual album) are pretty cool. Other than that Hadouken! Failed miserably at creating a proper album and succeeded perfectly at dismissing everything we loved about them.

Vampire Weekend - Contra (2010, XL)

Vampire Weekend - Contra
(2010, XL)

This might be one of the most challenging albums to write. With a well received debut that got praised in most alternative press living up to expectations might be a bit too much for a relatively young band like Vampire Weekend. Founded in 2006 and releasing their self titled debut in 2008 based on popularity mostly created by blogs. It was sure that this years Contra was going to get a lot of coverage online. Fans of their first record can now breathe freely again, they lived up to the hype. As to be heard on the bands earlier material Vampire Weekend take influences from African popular music and many other genres. This wide list of influences is expanded even more on Contra with VW also taking some hints from the eighties, synth pop, Caribbean rythms and more oddities. With this big flow of different influences you can hear the band sometimes struggling to make Contra a cohesive whole. In the opening track Horchata this is best displayed by the somewhat strange combination of elements presented in that song. After that little rough start VW manages to stay on track and create a interesting and fun record that doesn’t show any signs of being a difficult second album. They sound a lot fuller thanks to all the little bits that are added in. Comparing it to their fabulous debut shows Contra as the more grown-up version of the childhood dreams presented on the self titled. They replaced some of the spontaneous energy for a more eclectic sound that will sure gain them many new fans.