Columbia Records (label)
05 April 2024 (released)
07 April 2024
It’s been 5 long years since Vampire Weekend released their last album ‘Father of the Bride’ and we are delighted to welcome their return with brand new release ‘Only God Was Above Us’. This is their fifth studio album to date.
The album starts out subdued but, after about a minute into ‘Ice Cream Piano’, Vampire Weekend is all warmed up. We’re back with the bands unforgettable signature style of lively indie pop. Ezra Koenig will always have a knack of evoking an immediate sense of familiarity within us. His vocals and song writing are so fundamental to the sound of Vampire Weekend and, their 2nd track on the album, ‘Classical’ is a great example of this. It’s fun and eccentric, which is exactly want you want to hear from a Vampire Weekend record. ‘Connect’ and ‘Pravda’ are solidly within this category.
All-in-all, there is a more mature quality to this album than their previous records making this stand out as unique for the time and place they find themselves in. ‘Capricorn’ is an example of this as one of the haunting and more experimental tracks. It is altogether downbeat. Like the highs and lows in life, this album is a mixed bag of emotions. ‘Prep-School Gangsters’ is a highlight of the songs that is both up and down on the emotional scale and one of the most technically beautiful with some gorgeous instrumental interplay included at the end of the song. ‘Mary Boone’ features a sample from British act Soul II Soul. Their popular dance hit ‘Back To Life (However You Want Me)’ is intersected into an introspective and gentle piano piece carrying you away into a blissful reverie.
Stand-out tracks are: ‘The Surfer’, ‘Gen X Cops’ and ‘Hope’. ‘The Surfer’ is co-produced by collaborator and ex-band member Rostam Batmanglij, which may be where all of it’s mystery and sense of intrigue comes from. ‘Gen X’ jumps out at you and seizes in a space on the album that's all of its own. Then, there’s the folksy ‘Hope’ playing out the album in just under 8 minutes!
There’s something so timeless about their creative endeavours and, I can easily say, I thoroughly enjoyed this captivating listen.
Track listing:
1. Ice Cream Piano
2. Classical
3. Capricorn
4. Connect
5. Prep-School Gangsters
6. The Surfer
7. Gen-X Cops
8. Mary Boone
9. Pravda
10. Hope
