Only God Was Above Us (studio album) by Vampire Weekend

Album Rating: 83.00
(830/10)

05.04.2024

Vampire Weekend (US): Only God Was Above Us

1.Ice Cream Piano 88
2.Classical 85
3.Capricorn 85
4.Connect 87
5.Prep-School Gangsters 80
6.The Surfer 83
7.Gen-X Cops 83
8.Mary Boone 76
9.Pravda 77
10.Hope 86

In order:

Vampire Weekend (OGWAU) - Ice Cream Piano 88
Vampire Weekend (OGWAU) - Connect 87
Vampire Weekend (OGWAU) - Hope 86
Vampire Weekend (OGWAU) - Classical 85
Vampire Weekend (OGWAU) - Capricorn 85
Vampire Weekend (OGWAU) - The Surfer 83
Vampire Weekend (OGWAU) - Gen-X Cops 83
Vampire Weekend (OGWAU) - Prep-School Gangsters 80
Vampire Weekend (OGWAU) - Pravda 77
Vampire Weekend (OGWAU) - Mary Boone 76

Really pretty and delicate in parts. Some songs are really enjoyable, but some of it is generic in my opinion. Overall it’s an album worth listening to, but it doesn’t feel memorable.

The usual quirkiness and they are clearly way above the usual run-of-the-mill releases that the masses will be consuming. Overall it didn't really grab enough of my attention.

It's a fantastic album made by a band with a unique, very personal, very creative sound.
One of my favorite bands

When Vampire Weekend reformed and released Father of the Bride in 2019 I was just glad that my favourite band in my teenage years could still produce fun and exciting music, even if the output was a bit less consistent in quality than the stuff I'd grown to love years earlier. Only God Was Above Us is a different prospect altogether, we're back to a shorter 10 track structure with each of these brimming with ideas and none having the throwaway quality of some of FotB's worse tracks. There's something else though, I've always found something very warm and reassuring in the band's earliest records and I'm finding it here as well, the baroque pop of Capricorn or Connect feels like the natural next step from Don't Lie and Everlasting Arms. It's a tough quality to completely describe but there's an effortless feel to these tracks, as though they simply grew from the emotions of the band members and the city setting. Maybe losing the pressure of delivering for a big comeback album has helped the band out or maybe they've just fully adjusted to Rostam's departure, either way they really feel back to their full powers here.

Through their early records, the improvements in the lyrics really charted the band's overall progress. The self-titled's sometimes anxious commentary on campus life gave way to something more emotionally resonant on Contra, before Modern Vampires of the City took the elaborate lyricism that the band were known for and twisted it into something strangely evocative and profound. Only God Was Above Us comes in at a similar level, there's lots of lines that I couldn't totally explain to you, but I could tell you how they made me feel. It's strong musically as well, the quirks in each of the tracks still hold close to the overall feel of a track and never feel like they were thrown in to try to make a song more interesting. None of the tracks stand out quite as much as Classical, where the multiple tracks of percussion, warm keys and wilder guitars & brass blend in this beautiful way. Ezra's vocals, reaching that mournful but not hopeless place he's so good at getting to, really wrap it all up as one of the band's best ever songs. There's no stand-out bad or even lacklustre tracks across the rest of the record, but it doesn't reach this level again. I'm also not always 100% sure about some of the more dissonant elements on some of these tracks, the final moments of Capricorn are especially guilty of this, as one of the better songs here starts to fall apart under the weight of the sound. Still, these are pretty minor points to make about an indie band which has had to adapt to so many changes in the musical landscape while either on hiatus or between albums. As a teenage Vampire Weekend obsessive I think I built myself up for the release of Modern Vampires of the City more than I have for any album before or since, I got a pleasant surprise with these subsequent two releases where I held much less of an interest in what was coming prior to their release, but with this I've really taken notice again and will be glad to be back on the VW hype train when it next rolls into the station.

From lleon79 04/08/2024 01:20

Well, after having listened to this for a few days, I really really like this album. I think I'm in the minority when I say I loved "Father of the Bride". It was the album that made me get into Vampire Weekend (I didn't like the earlier ones). I was pretty surprised when I learned this was dropping. I found out the very day of its release, and I was excited to see VW releasing more music. What can I say? I think the first 4 tracks are just spectacular. It's one of the best sequences of songs I've heard in a long time. Though it begins very hard, the album then gets somewhat inconsistent, and that's really my only problem with "Only God Was Above Us". In my opinion, "Prep-School Gangsters" and "Pravda" refrain this record from reaching greater heights, but the rest is some of the best I've heard in a long time. The opening tracks are so fresh to listen to. They sound like something from the future; they are beautiful, yet, disruptive. The closing track, "Hope" is also an excelent way to close off, with a catchy melody and delightful instrumentation.

Wow this is great , not a bad track on it , as good as I've heard from any artist so far this year , this is better than the smile imo