Review Summary: Let me bring you my masterpiece
Vampire Weekend’s discography to date has been a series of
almosts. The effortlessly memorable indie-pop of 2008’s self-titled venture and 2010’s
Contra launched their careers, but didn’t quite harness the vast potential of a band that clearly had more to offer than just catchy melodies. 2013’s
Modern Vampires of the City was a noticeable step closer to unlocking the group’s full creative arsenal, with the frenetic energy bursts of ‘Diane Young’, the sweeping elegance of ‘Hannah Hunt’, and the emanating dread of ‘Hudson’ highlighting what could be the future of one of the genre’s most promising acts. After a long wait, 2019’s
Father of the Bride marked another pleasant outing, but it left a bit of a saccharine aftertaste – especially compared to what was teased during the peaks of
Modern Vampires. It’s been almost two decades of waiting for the band to finally break through in a huge way; to capture lightning in a bottle and deliver the long-awaited classic that they always seemed to have in them.
Well, it’s 2024 and there’s no longer a need to wait.
Only God Was Above Us marks the absolute zenith of Vampire Weekend’s career, and it’s not even particularly close. That’s not a criticism of their well-respected back catalog, but simply high praise for what seems to be a magnum opus by every possible angle of inspection. The band’s fifth full-length LP accomplishes everything that
Modern Vampires did right without any of the missteps: it’s ten tracks, no skips. Of course, to reduce the tracklist to a hit vs. miss rate would be a great disservice to what
Only God Was Above Us actually is: complex, inspired, and even slightly challenging. The instrumentation is bolder, the production is more pristine, and the arrangements are more daring than ever. Unlike some previous half-measures, this time Vampire Weekend have committed to breaking form – and the results are utterly brilliant.
The transformation is evident from the very onset, with ‘Ice Cream Piano’ rolling slowly along a reverb-drenched runway while Ezra Koenig describes a bleak yet relatively routine encounter with a stranger (“fuck the world, you said it quiet / No one could hear you, no one but me”). As the track progresses, it gathers momentum and truly takes flight, exploding into multiple crescendos of galloping drums, searing guitar riffs, furious piano stabs, and dancing strings. It feels like a re-awakening for the band, only executed on a level they’ve never reached before, and it serves as a microcosm of
Only God Was Above Us. Influences from multiple other genres are woven into the album’s fabric with apparent ease; there’s the full-blown jazz breakdown on ‘Classical’, the R&B-inspired beat on ‘Mary Boone’ which somehow meshes perfectly with its crystalline piano notes, and then there’s whatever ‘Connect’ is – this absolutely diabolical fusion of classical piano, warped production, stuttering percussion, and orchestral strings. These are the jaw-dropping moments that take what would
still be Vampire Weekend’s best album anyway and elevate it to an immediate album of the year contender.
When
Only God Was Above Us isn’t shattering glass ceilings, it’s delivering some of the most beautiful but disquieting indie-rock in recent memory. Lead single ‘Capricorn’ thrives on its searing-but-measured riffs, however the magic of the song can be found in the lyrics: “Too old for dyin' young, too young to live alone / Sifting through centuries, for moments of your own.” Much of
Only God Was Above Us explores the relationship between age and history, searching for purpose in an empty existence. The rollicking, electric guitar driven ‘Gen-X Cops’ is of the same mold, singing “Dodged the draft, but can't dodge the war / Forever cursed to live insecure” and observing that “It's by design and consequentially / Each generation makes its own apology.” ‘Classical’ touches on much of the same, but with even darker overtones: “I know that walls fall, shacks shake / Bridges burn and bodies break / It's clear something's gonna change / And when it does, which classical remains?” Vampire Weekend have always had a knack for crafting hefty content with expert subtlety, and one can read between the ambiguity here to find critiques of the upper class (“In times of war, the educated class knew what to do”) as well as the apparent truth that wealth seems to be the greatest determining factor in surviving calamity, comparing the rest of society to “Four hundred million animals competing for the zoo.” It’s bleak, unsettling stuff – and you’d almost be forgiven for not noticing it amid all the rich, vibrant melodies and raucous experimentation. Throughout
Only God Was Above Us, this pervading atmosphere of uneasiness lurks beneath the album’s gorgeous sheen.
Where there’d normally be tracks that could be politely omitted from the conversation,
Only God Was Above Us packs that space with hidden gems. The purposefully plucked, melodic guitar licks on ‘Prep-School Gangsters’ immediately earn a place among the most aesthetically pleasing moments in Vampire Weekend’s discography – and it’s more memorable than some of their choruses. ‘The Surfer’ bathes in rich, cinematic strings that sound like they could score the climax of a dramatic movie; or the end of the world itself. ‘Pravda’ gives us breathtaking guitar-work that flows around Koenig’s hard-hitting prose, eventually culminating in a dreamy, messy, hazy summit: “They always ask me about Pravda / It's just the Russian word for truth / Your consciousness is not my problem / And I hope you know your brain's not bulletproof”…“When I come home, it won't be home to you.” On the epic eight minute closer, the band sounds defeated by (or, depending on your perspective, at peace with) society’s seemingly insurmountable obstacles, ultimately arriving at the conclusion: “Our enemy's invincible / I hope you let it go.” These moments, carefully tucked between
Only God’s peaks, are what elevates the record above its predecessors. It sounds and feels flawless; the product of a band not only doing everything it does best all in one place, but also maturing and evolving before our eyes in the process.
Whereas Vampire Weekend’s first four efforts had the feel of something the band
wanted to make,
Only God Was Above Us possesses the drive of something they
had to make. It’s a visceral reaction to life in modern times: the chaos and confusion of the world around us, struggling to make peace with your place on history’s timeline, and the poetry that envelops it all. The album portrays all these things during its magnificent runtime, delivering anxiety, complexity, and downright
startling beauty in equal doses. On Vampire Weekend’s very first song ‘Mansard Roof’ from their debut LP, Koenig once sang, “And now the tops of buildings, I can see them too.” With
Only God Was Above Us, it’s hard not to sense that the idea has come full circle and crack a smile. Only now, they’re no longer on the cusp of greatness – they’ve fully achieved it.
Let me bring you my masterpiece
You're the author of everything
Use this voice and let it sing
