At the end of a long list of reference points in the press release announcing Vampire Weekend’s second album are the words Paul’s Boutique. While it sounds nothing at all like that seminal Beastie Boys record, Contra manages to be, in concept at least, its precise replica.

Like the Beasties in 1989, the members of Vampire Weekend are 20-something New Yorkers widely perceived as interlopers dabbling in styles not rightfully theirs—rap in the case of one, ska and Congolese soukous (among other forms) in the case of the other. Then there’s the fact that both bands’ first albums offered portraits of college lifestyles so vivid that many listeners missed the satire lurking beneath the surface. So the Beasties were mindless frat boys, and VW’s foursome navel-gazing preps—misconceptions both intensified and completely undercut by Paul’s Boutique and Contra, two of the best second albums of the last quarter-century.

While the Beastie Boys decamped to a house in Southern California to record their sophomore LP, Vampire Weekend sought inspiration from the Golden State as a kind of mythical ideal, Contra’s sunny tones and bright instrumental colours having been conjured in the confines of a Brooklyn studio in the dead of winter.

“When you’re touring, California is always where you’re headed or where you’re coming home from,” says drummer Chris Tomson, reached at his Brooklyn apartment. “It has this mystique and this allure for us, especially when it’s dark and raining and you’re dreaming about the sun.”

Contra shares with the band’s self-titled debut a fascination with sweet melodies, sharp consonants, and herky-jerky rhythms, but in its arrangements and production, the new album represents a quantum leap over the first. Take, for instance, Contra’s “Run”, which bears a passing resemblance to the first album’s “Mansard Roof” in its use of a reggaeton stutter beat. Where the earlier song resembles a live demo recording with some occasional string embellishments, “Run” is more fully lived-in, its Latin American–style trumpet fanfares and arpeggiated keys pulling the backbeat along and multiplying the number of hooks under singer Ezra Koenig’s main vocal line.

“The first album was about capturing songs we had been playing live for a while,” Tomson explains. “Coming into Contra, we weren’t beholden to any particular live versions of the songs in recording them. That give us more flexibility, and in general we had more time and more equipment, and were able to spend more time on each song. When it came time to start touring, we had to reverse-engineer them to figure out how to play them live.”

The key to Vampire Weekend’s appeal might lie in the fact that its members are better songwriters and arrangers than they are musicians. Their sound, as a result, is a wondrous thing—ruthlessly tuneful and restlessly syncopated, leisurely in appearance but meticulous in its architecture, never prone to the flashy excess that marks the output of headier counterparts like Grizzly Bear or Battles.

Tomson, who had never played drums in a band before VW, figures being new to the kit—just as bassist Chris Baio, keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij, and singer-guitarist Koenig were less than proficient on their instruments when the band formed—gives him a fresh perspective on playing, and changes the songwriting process accordingly.

“Because we’re not particularly great jammers, our approach to writing is not the same as it might be for other bands,” he says. “I approach a given song not as a drummer, but as if I were writing a part—not just repeating a metronomic beat with a single groove, but trying to write a rhythm that changes and moves around.”

Contra is hard not to dance to, with Tomson’s many percussive feints raining down like confetti—hard to grasp but thrilling to chase after. But on the album’s most conventionally danceable track, “Giving Up the Gun”, he provides little more than a walloping kick drum, lending the song the air of stripped-down house music.

Vampire Weekend’s willingness to borrow sounds liberally across generic and national borders is most boldly displayed on Contra’s “Diplomat’s Son”, an inexpressibly jaunty number about a gay tryst that marries a halting reggae beat (modelled after Toots and the Maytals’ “Pressure Drop”) to the chiming guitar tones of West African music. Add to that some woozy backing harmonies, a sample of M.I.A. scatting (from her song “Hussel”), and barrelhouse piano, and the players run the risk of overdosing on pastiche. That the band sews those parts together seamlessly is a testament to its subtle brilliance.

“We obviously are influenced by a lot of different types of music, but we don’t want to play genre stuff,” Tomson explains. “There’s definitely been times where a certain drumbeat or a guitar part comes too close to sounding like a parody or something, so we pull it out and start over. Ultimately, we want to make stuff that has our DNA.”

All of which brings us back to Paul’s Boutique, another album that was built by young guys stealing bits of other people’s music and fusing it with their own distinct voices. The Beasties’ record was a flop when it came out, only later gaining renown as one of the most influential records of its time. The fact that Contra has been well received by critics and consumers—it debuted at number one in Canada and the U.S.—suggests we’re getting better at spotting masterpieces.

Vampire Weekend plays Malkin Bowl on Friday and Saturday (August 27 and 28).