Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us

Art Rock | Baroque Pop

89%

 

Having not properly sat down and listened to Vampire Weekend in some time, I made a point of revisiting each of their first four records before diving into their fifth. In hindsight I wish I hadn’t, as it nearly resulted in this review reading very differently. Revisiting those albums just hammered home my existing relationship with Vampire Weekend; loving them as a singles band, but not sold on them as an album band. While I won’t deny they got close with Modern Vampires of the City, in essence it still followed the same pattern as their other releases – a couple of decade defining tracks, surrounded by bright and playful art rock experiments that don’t quite hit as hard. It’s not that they’re a band that struggles to make compelling music, far from it. Their missteps are few and far between, with most of them found on the over-bloated Father of the Bride. Instead they’re a band suffering from their own success. The high points are so high that they set themselves an impossible standard to live up to. Any given track would be the kind of inventive and engaging composition that most bands would kill for, but sat alongside their brightest moments they still seem dull by comparison. 

Going into Only God Was Above Us from this perspective, expecting a typical Vampire Weekend release, will initially lead to disappointment. There is no ‘A-Punk’, no ‘Diane Young’, no ‘This Life’, not a single track even remotely on the same level as their most memorable songs. For the first few listens it genuinely felt like something was missing, that the band stripped all the hits away pre-release. Then something clicked. That’s not to say memorable hits suddenly sprung out of nowhere, rather that their absence felt less like an issue and more like an opportunity. A chance for the band to build at a uniformly high standard across the board without fear of overshadowing themselves, to make an album that shines best as a cohesive body of work. When approached from this angle, it all falls into place. 

The band’s eclectic sound has never felt more mature and refined. Opener ‘Ice Cream Piano’ kicks into overdrive halfway through with such riveting gusto as the galloping beat kicks in, and yet still finds room to kick it up another notch near the end by matching pace with some ELO-esque string arrangements. ‘The Surfer’ blends lo-fi hip hop beats with spaced out psychedelia, ‘Mary Boone’ brings together an angelic choir, elegant strings and hints of Primal Scream, while ‘Capricorn’ flits between dreamy verses and a bombastic wall of sound on its earworm chorus. Breezy indie rocker ‘Prep School Gangsters’ boasts some gorgeous guitar work in its outro, dabbling with the Grateful Dead influences heard across FotB. The arrangements are consistently diverse and surprising, the production equally at home catering for opulent jazz and classical orchestration, alongside raw and rough hip hop beats and caterwauling guitars. There’s always something new around the corner, only running out of steam and inspiration on closing track ‘Hope’ which tries in vain to stretch three minutes worth of ideas into an 8 minute run time.

While the music speaks for itself all across the record, it doesn’t slouch in the lyrical department. Jazzy romp ‘Classical’, with its effervescent upright bass and duelling sax and keys breakdown, touches on class divides (“In times of war, the educated class knew what to do, In times of peace, their pupils couldn’t meet your baby blues“). Meanwhile on raucous alt rocker ‘Gen-X Cops’, beneath the squalling guitar and piano notes that hit like harp strings, you can hear commentary on generational divides and the stranglehold of the old guard keeping hopeful and fulfilling lives frustratingly out of reach for the next generation (“Dodged the draft, but can’t dodge the war, Forever cursed to live insecure, The curtain drops, a gang of Gen X cops assembles, Trembling before our human nature“).

Vampire Weekend have always felt like a unique outfit. Drawing from such a broad sonic palette, finding inspiration from overlooked corners, and piecing it all together in such an earnestly playful way. If anything this record makes the band feel like even more of a rarity. How many of their contemporaries can claim to be producing records as fresh and inventive as this? Most acts they rose alongside have lost the spark they once had. Yet even among new acts, those currently setting trends and breaking new ground, you would be hard pressed to find records displaying this level of creativity and craftsmanship. I’ve spoken before about the blurred boundaries between music you like and music that is objectively good. This is not an album I will claim to love. As intriguing as it is, the journey it has taken me on has not formed a meaningful emotional connection. But there is no mistaking its majesty, nor the way no other big name act is making anything quite this eclectic and inventive. While Only God Was Above Us likely won’t be my favourite album of 2024, it’s the one most likely to be looked back on years from now as an essential classic.