“Ice Cream Piano” begins with a healthy dose of guitar feedback and pronounced strumming, and then the first few lines of the album soothingly unfold, “‘Fuck the world’ / You said it quiet / No one could hear you / No one but me / Cynical, you can’t deny it.” It’s a surprising, but no less strong, sequence of phrases on which to launch Vampire Weekend’s fifth studio album, Only God Was Above Us. The album explores the status quo, including international conflicts, generational attitudes, and society’s unrelenting grip on historical traumas. And yet, Only God Was Above Us, named after a headline quote in the Daily News from a real-life Aloha Airlines flight incident in 1988, is not overtly political. Rather, it’s a musical commentary about fatalism and disillusionment, punctuated by an ultimate yearning for hope and progress. It’s the most cohesively inspired Vampire Weekend album yet, with the band diving head-first into a (mostly) New York City urban soundscape of grunge and grit (see the album cover image above) while not abandoning their gleeful chamber pop origins.
The album truly gets going with “Classical,” the most recognizably Vampire Weekend-esque song among the ten tracks. It’s a ballroom pop number with an synth hook and a deliriously gleeful performance by Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig. We hear about the repetitive march of history in the chorus, “How the cruel with time / Becomes classical,” which leads Koenig to ponder, “I know that walls fall / Shacks shake / Bridges burn / And bodies break / It’s clear / Something’s gonna change.” Then, we get a sense of consternation with the chorus’s last lines: “And when it does / Which classical remains?” It’s a somber sentiment that needles through the album via abstract imagery, real-world references, and melodic constructions.
As sentiments go, few are more emotionally delivered than within the one-two punch of “Capricorn” and “Gen-X Cops,”; two songs that are so beautiful, the latter so frenetic, that they distract the listener from their profound resignation. Koenig sings on “Capricorn” about being “Too old for dying young / Too young to live alone / Sifting through centuries / For moments of your own.” And in the chorus of “Gen-X Cops,” he sings, “It wasn’t built for me / It’s your academy / But in my time, you taught me how to see / Each generation makes its own apology.” In both songs, Vampire Weekend reckons with the uncontrollable nature of history’s oft-negative impact on the present. The band benefits from Chris Tomson’s drumming, Chris Baio’s bass playing, Koenig’s guitar strumming, and the latter’s pleasantly smooth, carefree vocals. All these components combine wonderfully, as always, and here, they’re able to add lightness to philosophical themes.
The album isn’t without its instrumental risk-taking, all of which pay off. In “Connect,” there’s a vibrant piano performance amidst a sonically complex baseline, sprinkled with a cacophony of electronic percussions and effects. “I know once it’s lost / It’s never found / I need to know.” The lyrics seem to be a meditation on the pandemic, which had a profoundly disorienting effect on social and worldly connections. Indeed, Koenig wrote many of the album’s lyrics across a few of the mid-pandemic years. “Now, is it strange I can’t connect? / It isn’t strange, but I could check.”
The award for the most soulful song on the album goes to “Mary Boone,” which features a Moby-esque beat and a backing children’s chorus. The song is named after a disgraced New York City art dealer who was convicted of tax evasion. Infusing real-life inspirations with imaginative nostalgia, Koenig sings, “In a quiet moment at the theater / I could hear the train / Deep inside the city / Your memory remains.”
Is it stereotypical to end on a ballad? Sure, but if the song is profoundly appropriate as a closer, then why not? Vampire Weekend choose to end their album with a nearly eight-minute send-off in the form of “Hope,” a wonderful testament to the power of forgiveness and moving on. Perhaps easier said (or sang) than done, but it’s no less heartwarming to hear the phrase, “I hope you let it go,” echoed into the album’s final moments. Thus, with memorable lyrics and clever hooks abound, Only God Was Above Us is a pleasurable wealth of musicianship by the songwriting trio, and as we let the final sentiment of “Hope” wash over us, we can take a breath, then put the record on again from the beginning.
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Only God Was Above Us will be released on Friday, April 5th.
