In spite of its 2010 release date, Contra shares a common spirit with 2009’s buttoned-up indie releases. Grizzly Bear, St Vincent, Camera Obscura and countless others produced the most precisely arranged albums of their careers; Veckatimest in particular gave a strong impression of hours spent carefully tweaking every last detail to perfection.

This spate of OCD-indie dispensed with rock’s sweat and spontaneity, in favour of a cerebral appeal somewhere between electronica and sophisticated pop. In doing so, these albums were perhaps short on immediate appeal, but had a way of slowly ingratiating themselves into a listener’s subconscious and setting up camp.

The most significant precedent for Contra might not be Vampire Weekend’s first album, but keyboardist and arranger Rostam Batmanglij’s Discovery side-project. The album LP was arranged to within an inch of its life, working carefully calibrated drum machines and fussy synth patterns into a slick version of R&B.

Contra, too, is a precise project. Batmanglij’s arrangements are simultaneously more ornate and more controlled than on Vampire Weekend’s eponymous debut. Marimba chimes double Ezra Koenig’s vocal melodies, and string parts flow discretely in and out of focus. Drummer Christopher Tomson’s rhythms are more restrained, and occasionally replaced by a drum machine pulse. Chris Baio’s basslines sit further back in the mix than before, depriving us of anything like the giddy thrill of A-Punk.

The attention to detail and polite arrangements occasionally make Contra seem like a bloodless affair, but that’s a ruse. Koenig’s lyrics, always concerned with notions of class, attack elitism and pretension. They’re sharp and venomous, in stark contrast to the mannered arrangements.

California English twists and shimmers on Koenig’s Auto-tuned vocal, a flighty melody disguising his disdain for lifestyles of Alpine ski trips and private schools. Taxi Cab is the most direct; a soft cello burr and tripping piano softening backhanded remarks like “you said, – œBaby we don’t speak of that’/like a real aristocrat”.

From the Ralph Lauren polo-shirt on the album cover, to the brand names and upper-class iconography that pop up in the lyrics, Vampire Weekend are not celebrating these status symbols, but obliquely attacking the people who value such things, and in doing so, turning their own weapons against them.

Vampire Weekend was a headlong rush of a debut, full of energy and vigour that produced some outstanding tracks ( Oxford Comma, M79 ), but also had misfires like One (Blake’s Got a New Face). Contra, on the other hand, makes a virtue of consistency. In fact, it’s a closer relative of St Vincent’s Actor, or Grizzly Bear’s While You Wait For the Others, where the delicate, often lovely melodies act as Trojan Horses for the lyrical venom.

Even as its targets change, Contra looks like it’ll be sharp and relevant as long as pretension and snobbery exist – that is to say, for a very long time.

Contra is out now on XL Recordings through Remote Control Records.