“Only God Was Above Us” – Vampire Weekend

Album: Only God Was Above Us

Artist: Vampire Weekend

Year: 2024

Genre: Indie Rock

Grade: A

Vampire Weekend’s fifth album, Only God Was Above Us, is another great entry in the indie rock band’s ever illustrious discography. They were already one of the greatest artists of the last couple decades based on the strength of their first three albums alone — hell, based on the strength of Modern Vampires of the City alone — but this latest release only confirms what we already know: that Vampire Weekend is firmly in rarified air when it comes to modern rock history; an impressive legacy which only the likes of Radiohead, Pavement, Deerhunter and Yo La Tengo can compare (in the last 30 or so years, that is).

Only God Was Above Us is a culmination — and a celebration — of Vampire Weekend’s signature sound. The musicianship is technically accomplished, and frontman Ezra Koenig’s lyrics are filled with ambiguous wisdom and clever turns of phrase befitting of his Ivy League education. In short, the album is an instant classic; the fourth such release of their career.

What strikes me most about the album is the sheer musicality of it all. Koenig has always been an ambitious songwriter, but this is the first time that he’s also become an ambitious soundscaper. The entire album is chock full of contrapuntal hooks and guitar riffs that will wow you with their subtle complexities. There are sax solos and piano fanfares and violin interludes, and there are even a few psychedelic tunes that stretch out past the five-minute mark.

The eclectic sound is held together by the strong, mechanical rhythm section of Chris Tomson (drums) and Chris Baio (bass), whose presence was sorely missed on their previous album (the sprawling Father of the Bride basically served as a de facto Koenig solo endeavor). In fact, this is the tightest that Vampire Weekend has sounded since perhaps their self-titled debut in 2008.

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Now that the band has entered into the second decade of their career, it’s easy to draw parallels between their new songs and their past works: “Ice Cream Piano” is the cathartic opener à la “Mansard Roof” and “Horchata”; “Gen-X Cops” interpolates a melody from “Hudson”; “Capricorn” references “Diane Young”; “Pravda” is a lush cross between the soukous-inspired “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and the jazz-inflected “Flower Moon”; and so on and so forth.

But that would also ignore all the new ideas that Only God Was Above Us brings to the table. Songs like “The Surfer,” filled with atmospheric psychedelia and a laidback yet foreboding vibe, and “Hope,” the eight-minute closer that is Vampire Weekend’s sort-of answer to Maurice Ravel’s Bolero, are uncharted territory for the band.

Then again, every song includes individual sonic pleasures that stay in the head for days. To wit: Koenig’s “woo!” exclamation at 1:04 of “Mary Boone”; the sliding, synth siren that enters at 1:33 of “The Surfer”; the sinuous, descending guitar melody at 6:16 of “Hope.” And if these moments don’t necessarily surpass the glorious piano break from 2:41 of “Hannah Hunt,” well, very few moments in the history of modern music can come close to that anyway.

All that’s to say Vampire Weekend has undoubtedly reached all-time status. They have yet to release a bad song, let alone a bad album, and their instrumental prowess is only growing. Koenig’s lyrics remain as potent and poignant as ever — if not a tad more ambiguous this time around — which gives Only God Was Above Us the full intellectual package. This is a great album from one of the greatest bands in recent memory.

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