For an indie band, Vampire Weekend have been phenomenally successful critically and commercially over their 15-year career. Their excellent debut album Vampire Weekend (2008) offered a mix of prep-school vibes (the band formed at Columbia University), Afro pop, and classical instruments – a sound that was worldly yet elitist. Without letting go of their core ethos, they went on to win not one but two Grammys, for their third album Modern Vampires of the City (2013) and fourth album Father of the Bride (2019), with the latter even being nominated for Album of the Year.
Much of the success of the prior albums has derived from the chemistry between Ezra Koenig, the band’s telegenic, bright frontman, and Rostam Batmanglij, a multi-hyphenate multi-instrumentalist that provided a lot of the band’s eclectic influences. Although Batmanglij left the band after Modern Vampires to launch the electro-funk band Discovery, he was still around to assist with the production and creation of Father of the Bride. The band’s fifth album, Only God Was Above Us, is the first to be created and recorded by the remaining threesome – Koenig, bassist Chris Baio and drummer Chris Tomson – and it was unclear whether the direction of the new music would suffer from one-half of the band’s erstwhile magic spark being out of the picture.
Happily, though, Only God Was Above Us is some of Vampire Weekend’s best work since their debut album – and indeed, strongly reminded the author of that album. “Classical” would fit perfectly on the 2008 record, interspersing the band’s trademark indie-pop sound with chamber music-esque riffs. Although the lyrics are characteristically a tad oblique, Koenig’s “How the cruel, with time, becomes classical” makes one think of the song as a commentary on the famous Churchill quote “History is written by the victors”. And that’s classic Vampire Weekend for you – deceptively high-brow without being too pretentious. “Connect” begins with a twinkling piano and an asymmetric drum beat that will be familiar to long-time listeners of “Mansard Roof”. “Ice Cream Piano”, the album opener, starts off with fuzzy guitars and slow-paced intonations from Koenig, but speeds up into a lively indie-pop track backed by violins and string bass.
Beyond callbacks to their own earlier music, there’s plenty of new ideas on here. Most of the band members are on the cusp of their 40s, and the gentle “Capricorn” refers to these milestones with lines like “Too old for dyin’ young / too young to live alone”. “Gen-X Cops” takes a leaf out of fellow New Yorkers The Voidz with its frenetic opening riff, although the middle sections are all trademark Vampire Weekend. “Hope”, the album closer, is a meandering 8-minute track (to put into perspective, that’s about a sixth of the album’s entire runtime) about forgiveness, growing up, and just rising above it all. It’s very different and very good.
The other songs on here are all decent in their own way. There are some interesting bits with the slow beats and echoing piano on “The Surfer” – the only collaboration on this album with ex-member Batmanglij – and there’s a lovely, alluring lightness to “Pravda”. This writer didn’t care much for the final single “Mary Boone” or for “Prep-School Gangsters, but they could be songs that blossom with time and repeated listens.
Apart from Koenig and Batmanglij, another keystone of the band has been their collaboration with Ariel Rechtshaid, who came in for Modern Vampires (the first two albums being produced by Batmanglij himself) and has produced all their albums since then. The partnership has clearly worked, gaining the band not just the two Grammys but also a wider, more diverse audience beyond the collegiate set from the initial years. As a side note, Rechtshaid was dating Danielle Haim from the band Haim during the Father of the Bride era, which directly led to her presence throughout that album including on the duet between her and Koenig on “Hold You Now”.
As another side note, Vampire Weekend debuted most of the songs from their new album on April 8th in Austin, Texas, three days after the album was released. Not only did the concert fall on Koenig’s 40th birthday – an interesting coincidence given the references to middle-age on this album – it was timed to the North American total solar eclipse. This writer was, fortunately, at that concert and can ascertain that it was a truly magical, otherworldly experience: one that truly brought meaning to the phrase “only God was above us”.
All in all, Only God Was Above Us is some of Vampire Weekend’s most self-assured, unique work since their first album. Also, in an era where big-name artists refuse to self-edit and insist on dumping all their ideas on listeners (looking at you, Beyonce and Taylor Swift), Vampire Weekend’s tightness is commendable. Although there are a couple of so-so tracks on here, Only God Was Above Us is a strong, tight and cohesive album, with each of the ten songs fitting well across the 47-minute run time.
Rating: 8/10
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