Deerhunter MIcrocastle/Weird Era Cont. Vs. Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend

Yeah, I listened to these right away, too and managed to take forever. Part of that is laziness, but part of it is that this is a pretty difficult decision. First, I don't really care for any of the album covers in this matchup, so I've replaced them. I say "any" because the Deerhunter album is two albums that, as far as I understand from a brief scan of the Wikipedia article, came out at different times.I hadn't heard Deerhunter at all before this, but I was fairly familiar with Vampire Weekend.

Vampire Weekend is, as has been noted elsewhere, super infectious. I think that's why I quit listening to it not long after I first heard it. I get these little bits of their songs in my head and they just won't go away. But while I'm listening to them I really like it. The lyrics are usually smart and the sound is awfully original for being so poppy. They keep it pretty simple and light and it sounds like fun times.

Like I said, I hadn't listened to Deerhunter, and I'm glad I got them in this matchup. The double album thing is kind of problematic here and I'm having a hard time thinking of them as one unit because they seem distinctly different to me. Microcastle seems like what I'd expect to be considered good music right now. It has a mix of moody, atmospheric songs that sound like the album cover looks (too bad it's not here, huh?) and some nice beat-driven stuff with drumming that's just fuzzy and haphazard enough to feel warm, but good enough to complement the rest of the music well. I really like how the song, "Microcastle," does both. But then I just get kind of bogged down and everything kind of melts together.

The second album, "Weird Era Cont." has a more unified feel to it. It sounds kind of like if Jack White produced a Shangri-Las album today. Kind of echoey psych rock and all pretty enjoyable without being too light. I definitely like it better than Microcastle. Vox Celeste is great - kind of reminds me of Yo La Tengo's "Sugar Cube."

So, it's kind of a dilemma here. I think if it was just "Weird Era Cont." against "Vampire Weekend" I'd choose Deerhunter, but both Deerhunters together? So then I thought, "well if you're going to kill Deerhunter, you'd better look over Vampire Weekend more, because you didn't really say anything about those individual songs." And now I've looked it over again and it's because they're all solid. I think "I Stand Corrected," and "Walcott" might be my favorites. I'm pretty sure I'll remember this album for a long time.

Actually, I kind of like the Vampire Weekend cover. It looks like a bunch of people at a fun college party in an old house, but the puppet rock opera from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I mean...

Vampire Weekend wins.