When Vampire Weekend hit the alternative airways halfway through the 2000s, their catchy, guitar-driven anthems were often clouded with discussion centred around appropriation and privilege. Emerging out of Ivy-League school Columbia University, few could deny the quality of the bands early work but eyes were often rolled at the way in which the band presented itself, donning button-up shirts and filming music-videos on yachts, all whilst borrowing heavily from West African and Ska music. For many, Vampire Weekend were considered a gimmick band, made up of members that had faced little adversity and even less life experience, appropriating African music and passing it as their own. Sixteen years, four albums and two Grammys later, frontman Ezra Koenig is now the one driving the discussion, as on Vampire Weekend’s fifth album ‘Only God Was Above Us’, one of New York’s finest bands redefine what it means to release an alternative album in 2024 and may just finally win over some of their critics.
It’s now been five years since the bands last project, the 18-track ‘Father of The Bride’ which saw Koenig embrace a collaborative Grateful-Dead inspired double album approach. It was an odd time for the three-piece, as the album was billed as a Koenig solo project and ultimately lacked direction that its original members would have added. Pairing sunkissed instrumentation with visuals of frogs, sunshine and the West Coast of America, ‘Father Of The Bride’ was colourful and had very few dark turns.
On ‘Only God Was Above Us’, the script has been flipped.
Vampire Weekend’s original members are back in the fold, the track-listing is concise, and the name is taken from the headline of a late-eighties air crash disaster. Furthermore, The New York natives have beefed up their guitar tones, ramped up their orchestral sections and Koenig’s lyrics tiptoe between cynicism of the current state of the world and acceptance. While there are no indie-disco anthems reminiscent of ‘A-Punk’ or ‘Cousins’, ‘Only God Was Above Us’ sees longtime producer Ariel Rechtshaid (Adele, Haim) help recapture the very essence of Vampire Weekend, all whilst breaking new ground that is undoubtedly their best work yet. Since we got word of Vampire Weekend’s return in early February, there has felt something special about this album campaign, as stunning visuals and snippets coinciding with the return of founding members Chris Baio and Chris Tomson have led to an unshakeable excitement within the alternative community. In the lead up to the first singles of the album being released, Koenig was quoted in saying that ‘Only God Was Above Us’ featured ‘7 of his all-time top 10 best songs’.
When asked how he would describe the album, he responded ‘10 songs, no skips.’
He was right too.
While on first listen, lead single ‘Capricorn’ may come across as nothing more than a plucky acoustic number, the songs arrangement gets turned on its head in a second chorus that sees heavily distorted guitars drops in and out without warning, turning what could have been a gentle number into a full-blown anthem. Likewise, the same distorted guitars are utilised on the brilliant ‘Gen X Cops’, a far cry from the clean, brighter guitar tone that early fans of Vampire Weekend will remember. With that said, producer Ariel Rechtshaid’s greatest strength throughout this album is his ability to create arrangements like ‘Gen X Cops’ that whilst feeling heavily overdubbed with various instrumental layers, never lose the energy of a live-band and ultimately the essence of Vampire Weekend, something that was undoubtedly lost in Koenig’s solo adventure on ‘Father of the Bride’. The energy of ‘Gen X Cops’, paired with twinkling pianos and introspective lyrics, has Koenig musing that ‘every generation makes their own apology’. Now a far cry from the boat shoe, Ralph-Lauren wearing Ivy-School graduate of 2006, Koenig’s lyrics throughout Gen X Cops read of someone that has now become comfortable with the artist he is, whilst analysing the next generation of kids who will make the same mistakes he did. Throughout ‘Only God Was Above Us’, Koenig’s worldview is often at the forefront of his lyrical content, as he aptly puts it on opener ‘Ice Cream Piano’, ‘We’re all the sons and daughters of vampires who drained the old world’s necks’. Whereas on album highlight ‘Classical’, he comments on how the victors of history will often rule it, no matter how cruel their practices may be. Often regarded as one of the best lyricists of his generation, the album is littered with one-liners and lyrical gems but what is most impressive is his ability to work them into songs that still manage to have a pop sensibility to them. In the case of ‘Classical’, the band combines a nineties hip-hop beat with a string-ladden arrangement, all whilst keeping a digestible hook present. ‘Classical’ may only be the second song on the album but it becomes apparent very quickly that are you listening to something special, especially when Koenig is reciting lines like these. ‘In times of war, the educated class knew what to do / In times of peace, their pupils couldn’t meet your baby blues / 400 million animals competing for the zoo.
Elsewhere on the record, ‘Mary Boone’ features a haunting children’s choir that perfectly complements Koenig’s hushed vocals, with the title of the song coming from the name of the imprisoned New York art dealer. Whilst ‘Prep School Gangsters’ channels ‘The Cars’ 1978 hit ‘My Best Friend’s Girl’ as Koenig reflects on his Ivy-School college days that were the catalyst for several think pieces around the band in 2006. ‘Prep-school gangsters make the call / As the summer turns to fall’ croons Koenig over a gentle, simpler arrangement that allows for a breather from the frenetic energy of the rest of the album. Yet, the real magic is saved for the mammoth closer ‘Hope’, which clocks in at just under 8 minutes, making it Vampire Weekend’s longest recorded song and closing out undoubtedly their best body of work. The repeated refrain of ‘I hope you let it go’ is repeated twenty-nine times across a song that manoeuvres itself through multiple verses and instrumental passages that provides Vampire Weekend with their crowning jewel and cementing ‘Only God Was Above Us’ as a modern-day classic. In its final passage, Koenig changes and personifies the refrain, acknowledging that ‘I’ve had to let it go’, as the frontman chooses acceptance over cynicism in how he now sees the world. With Koenig turning forty during the release week of the album, it feels like a fitting sentiment to exit your thirties with.
While critics will be lining up to include ‘Only God Was Above Us’ on their end-of-year best-of lists it may be wise for them to bypass that train of thought and turn their attention to end-of-decade lists instead. With founding members back at the helm to help recapture the essence of Vampire Weekend while simultaneously pushing the band to new ground, ‘Only God Was Above Us’ greatest achievement is not in its songwriting, production or aesthetic but instead in redefining what it means to release a modern-day alternative album.
Words by Romesh Cruse