Only God Was Above Us Album Feature

It feels weird getting this excited about a Vampire Weekend record in the year 2024. For a huge chunk of the decade since 2013’s Modern Vampires Of the City, the finale of a triumphant three album run that saw them go from flavor of the month indie curiosity to one of the most significant acts of the era, it seemed like the band’s best days might have been behind them. The group lost one of its chief songwriters in the departure of Rostam Batmangali in 2016 and, in stark contrast to their prolific early years, only released a single record in ten years, 2019’s Father of the Bride – an overstuffed album that failed to attract the critical excitement they were used to and threatened to prove the act’s biggest detractors correct with its largely uninspired watered down version of the band’s esoteric art pop sound. I have always been a big defender of the band. Whenever they come up in the “was this band ever good?” discussions that are all too common in internet music snob circles, I have always been eager to champion tracks like “Walcott” and “Unbelievers” as undeniable evidence of their songwriting prowess. However, I must admit I was worried that, like so many of their peers from the 2000’s indie rock world, my fandom would be followed by a clarifying asterisk, but was fully prepared for that to be the case. So yeah. It’s weird to be as hyped for this new one as I am. But I’ll be damned, this thing is really fucking good. 

What is so exciting about Only God Was Above Us is its adventure. Ezra Koenig and company have not massively changed the core of what they are about. They are still fundamentally the same band, playing carefully composed pop music in the vein of Paul Simon, The Beach Boys, and late era Kinks, and if you weren’t into it beforehand I don’t know that this will be the album that convinces you to hop on board. Present still are Koenig’s clever lyrics and bright guitar lines, as well Chrises both Baio and Thomson’s world music inspired rhythm section. What’s changed is the way they are showing it to us.

Something that has been central to the band since their earliest days has been a rejection of the “cool”. Coming from a time and place and scene in which cred was at a premium, Vampire Weekend was synthesizing the most uncool set of influences and dressing them up in a prep school, old money aesthetic. They were Columbia University students that sang about Cape Cod and grammar rules. Their guitars had barely even heard of a “minor key”, let alone a distortion pedal. It was a reaction to, and in my opinion a commentary on, the artificial aesthetic of sleaze found in so many other of their contemporaries. If Julian Casablancas was going to get on stage rocking a full Canadian Tuxedo and the worst haircut you’ve ever seen to try and make you forget that his band met at a Swiss boarding school, Koenig was going to put on a sweater vest and the pinkest little boat shorts you’d ever seen while telling you about a luncheon. This clean image and sound mixed with the snark and sarcasm found in Koenig’s lyrics spoke about class, image, and culture in a very interesting way. And as the albums progressed they focused in, honing the beautiful baroque pop sensibilities and bringing that to the forefront, the quirkier impulses from which those parts of their music originally came from receded to the background. However as social media’s visual culture has increasingly moved towards this conservative and empty vision of the world that Koenig once spoke on with a wink to the camera, living in that space is no longer the interesting choice it once was. So Vampire Weekend pivots.

This album feels like going back to the first album and taking a different weirder path forward. Not the cleanly produced lush one they went down the first go around, but a psychedelic and abstract one. From the get go, “Ice Cream Piano”, already feels a bit fuzzier and a bit dirtier than they would have made that song before. And as the song expands the guitars get fuzzier and there are buzzy as hell synths following along the rushing strings. “Classical” is a collage of disparate influences, with a hip hop break beat, a pitch shifted clav, and a heavily effected slide guitar line that feels like they never would have used before that comes together as one of the catchiest songs they’ve ever done. Vampire Weekend is closer to The Flaming Lips than they have ever been before. They are giving space for their songs to breathe without overindulging. They are using drum machines and synths and plugging pedals into their amps. They are making bold decisions with their mixes (look at “Pravda”, a Graceland-esque tune with an interesting dub inspired mix that explodes with Tim Hecker droning pads as the track unravels) and most importantly feeling like they are finding joy in the experimentation.

One of the most interesting, but less obvious changes, is the way Ezra Koenig’s lyrics have changed. On past releases Koenig was known for a pop culture obsessed sarcasm (Lil John, he always tells the truth), but on Only God Was Above Us that has faded away and been replaced with the frustrated poetry of a man growing older wondering where he fits into a world that does not need him. On “Capricorn” he sings “Too old for dying young/Too young to live alone”. On “Prep-School Gangsters” he reflects on jealousy and how this competition maybe toxically fueled his career. The 7 minute sprawling closer “Hope” is one of their most ambitious tracks ever, the lyrics a meditation on American Imperialism and trying to make sense of how much less control you have than you once thought you did. It is a fascinating shift. He’s not hiding behind the snark of his youth. He’s embracing uncomfortable and raw feelings that he shied away from before. Much like the evolution of the music, this feels like Koenig finally embracing and finding a kind of joy and fulfillment in a less controlled and manicured artistic mode.

Vampire Weekend are still not trying to be “cool”. They are not getting stranger for the sake of a new image, or bringing up older sounds for the sake of crowd pleasing nostalgia. They are being sincere. They are considering the paths they’ve taken and ones they missed. They are taking the lessons they’ve learned throughout their career and using them to have fun and explore new ideas out of a love for being a band. This is an album about growing up and letting go and just focusing on the things that make you happy. Realizing that the only person you can make sure that you please is yourself. And it just so happens to be the most exciting music that Vampire Weekend has made in years.