Only God Was Above Us is the fifth album released by the massively popular, Grammy award winning indie rock band Vampire Weekend. Forming in 2006 with lead singer Ezra Koenig, guitarist Rostam Batmanglij, drummer Chris Tomson, and bassist Chris Baio, Vampire Weekend has helped define their genre while incorporating Afro-pop, hip hop, and ska into their music. With this new powerfully introspective album Vampire Weekend explores melancholic themes, through its atmospheric melodies, poignant lyrics, and virtuosic storytelling.
The album opens with Ice Cream Piano, an extravagant song beginning with an orchestral sound and ending with a roaring guitar. Following this, Classical is a disjointed yet harmonious melody with sounds of a cityscape in the background, it then fades into Capricorn which starts slow but by the second chorus is a tremendous swell. After this are Connect and Prep-School Gangsters both of which rhythmically mimics and references parts of their self titled debut album. The unique wave of strings and horns on The Surfer complete with Allman Brothers-esque guitar which contorts into Johnny Greenwood playing style on Gen-X Cops; a song which is as if they took their pumped up early songs such as “Campus” and gave it a much darker tone and features original members of the band. Adding to this darker tone is the track Mary Boone which features haunting vocals from a children’s choir singing as a tribute to this New York gallery owner. Relating back to the melancholic and somewhat dispiriting theme in Pravda, Koenig describes his New York experience building tall tales while relating them to reality. Closing their album with Hope, the band provides depressing verses while urging the listener to make peace with the fact that there is no way to get rid of the bad in the world and to just deal with it.
The musical virtuosity contained within the album is impossible to ignore, Vampire Weekend is able to completely reinvent their sound while still being able to keep their roots. They use loud, crunchy guitar on songs like Capricorn but then are able to suddenly switch to large almost sci-fi orchestral instrumentation one song later in Connect. The band definitely isn’t afraid to use instruments that a rock band wouldn’t normally use, songs like The Surfer use low brassy notes on the horns reminiscent of ELO. Or how on Mary Boone the aforementioned choir of children is accompanied very quickly by an a Capella beat with a symphony of strings. It’s not often that bands provide an album that both musical virtuoso and people who have never touched an instrument in their life can enjoy, but they do this fantastically.
Though there are some breaks in between songs on the overall melancholics and ignorance that is the human experience and how even when faced with confusion one’s individuality and identity is important. In Ice Cream Piano Koening sings: “Cynical, you can’t deny it / You don’t want to win this war ’cause you don’t want the peace”, accusing the listener of a willful ignorance and conforming out of apathy. Or how in Pravda the clear convenient of ignorance: “Your consciousness is not my problem / And I hope you know your brain’s not bulletproof”, the latter half emphasizing a person’s responsibility for themselves and their true vulnerability. And so, through masterful storytelling technique, atmospheric melodies, and poignant lyrics Vampire Weekend is able to tackle the themes of sorrow and human ignorance. Using. Only God Was Above Us is able to be a clear testament to their proficiency as artists as they are able to encourage listeners to confront their own vulnerabilities and individuality in the face of a complex world.
If any of this sounds good to you be sure to check it out.
