Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us

Year	Album	Artist	Stars	Score	Genres
2024	Only God Was Above Us	Vampire Weekend	★★★★½	92	Rock	Indie Pop

Only God Was Above Us in a way is Vampire Weekend being their more Vampire Weekend-y. 

There’s a lot of baroque-inspired chamber music. There’s a lot of warm, boyish vocal melodies by Ezra Koenig and light, upbeat rhythms by drummer Chris Tomson and bassist Chris Baio. And while former bandmate Rostam Batmanglij is no longer with the band, his additional production work on this record and overall influence adds a layer of backing harmonies and synths that were clearly missing on the band’s last record, Father of the Bride, in 2019.   

The band’s pompous, classical music student quirks are cranked up as well. There are a lot of showy, melodic lines, whether it’s a quick guitar riff, a bridge made up of fast piano scales or repeated licks on a violin. 

Vampire Weekend have a few new things in their bag of tricks. Instead of the clear, blue skies of the past, the mix on Only God Was Above Us is a bit muddy at times and a little frantic. There are also outbursts of harsh noise, with screeching guitars, saxophones and layers of piano that abruptly, but appropriately, overwhelm your senses as the songs build. It’s like they’ve added a shot of espresso to the traditional Vampire Weekend horchata recipe. 

Many of the themes and melodies on Only God Was Above Us build off of their past material. The opening track is an instant classic, starting slow with some emotional and political lines before speeding up with a carefree, carnival-like energy, like a combination of “Obvious Bicycle” and “Unbelievers.” Then “Classical” sounds extremely familiar, like they took multiple early Vampire Weekend singles and threw them in a blender to drown out the outside noise. 

“Connect” and “Prep-School Gangsters” have a level of artsy pretentiousness and sophistication that only Vampire Weekend can really pull off, and they do it with aplomb. The loud, rock-forward “Gen-X Cops” sticks out on the record in a good way, and pulls part of its melody from the back end of “Hudson,” the lone slow, dark track on 2016’s Modern Vampires of the City. 

The final three tracks on the record really bring in the ethereal elements. “Mary Boone” has soothing backing synths, laidback drum loops and heavenly backing vocals and pianos you can melt into. “Pravda” has a hypnotic guitar riff and is loaded with cute musical accents. The closer “Hope” brings acoustic guitars, light pianos and a big buildup near the end for a great finale.