Step away from your blogs, the heroes of indie rock have returned!

Yes, it’s true — those witty Ivy League boys from the East Coast who comprise the quartet better known as Vampire Weekend have released their long-awaited sophomore effort. So, open those cardigan-covered arms and warmly welcome the simply titled “Contra.”

These darlings of the blogosphere have spent the past two years riding the wave of hype their self-titled debut garnered and have become seemingly invincible to criticism. Often praised for singer Ezra Koenig’s biting wit and obvious intelligence or guitarist and keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij’s indelible knack for crafting beautifully layered compositions, critics have convened and declared this band to be without flaw.

Needless to say, Vampire Weekend is talented and innovative, to be sure, but flawless they are not, and “Contra” proves it.

The feel-good “Horchata” opens the album with the playful tinkering of various percussion instruments and is so sugary sweet that it is all but irresistible.

By the end of the tune, the Vampire Weekend love affair is again sparking and over-anxious fingers are begging to type heaps of praise. However, disasters like “White Sky,” featuring Koenig doing some terribly misguided yodeling —or climaxing, it’s impossible to differentiate — or the out-of-left-field-but-not-in-a-good-way “California English” come crashing in and mess things up like a drunken roommate stumbling in on a heated make-out session.

It is not the listener’s loss so much as it is the band’s loss, though. If you listen closely enough, little gems of what this band has the potential to be when it is at its best can be found.

The catchiness of “Holiday” is undeniable and “Run” has all of the production grandeur that made Vampire Weekend such a polarizing band to begin with, but it seems that the dynamics that the band built its reputation on have been, for the most part, sacrificed on “Contra.”

This leaves the Ivy League lads in a peculiar situation — old fans won’t once again revel in their creativity, and potential new fans won’t find this record to be very accessible and likely won’t understand the hype surrounding this band.

Sure, the appealing dance jam “Give Up The Gun” will get hipster rumps shaking all over the place with its synthesizer grooves, but it’s balanced out by the torturously boring “Diplomat’s Son” or the airy but slow-moving ballad “I Think UR a Contra.”

Maybe the frantic “Cousins” will really appeal to those previously unsure of the band and will be what gets them to sign up for the über-hip legions of Vampire Weekend fans, but will they actually make it that far into the album after being rocked to sleep by the likes of “Taxi Cab?”

Questions like those prove to be where “Contra” slips up — for every point, there is a counterpoint or for every hill there is a valley.

It would be unfair to write this band off, though — there is an obvious amount of ingenuity and risk that Vampire Weekend puts into its music that no other band is willing to venture.

With that said, being adventurous above all else is not enough to earn a free pass to critical acclaim. The music itself actually has to back it up, much like it did on the band’s first release.

On “Contra,” Vampire Weekend simply didn’t do its reputation justice.

Reach the reporter at jdfourni@asu.edu