Vampire Weekend Announces New Album - 'Only God Was Above Us' Out April 5 (Preview/Pre-Order)
by Rock Cellar Magazine Staff
Vampire Weekend (Photo: Michael Schmelling)
Beloved, Grammy-winning indie/alternative outfit Vampire Weekend will release a new studio album, Only God Was Above Us, on April 5.
The NYC band's fifth full-length and first in five years was previewed with a short album teaser on Thursday:
Vampire Weekend is Ezra Koenig, Chris Baio and Chris Tomson.
Per a news release, the beginnings of Only God Was Above Us stretch back to 2019-2020, when Koenig wrote the bulk of the lyrics. The 10-track magnum opus is the product of five years spent refining, reworking and gradually shaping those lyrical and melodic structures to take Vampire Weekend to a new creative peak. The album is direct yet complex, showing the band at once at its grittiest, and also at its most beautiful and melodic.
01. Ice Cream Piano 02. Classical 03. Capricorn 04. Connect 05. Prep-School Gangsters 06. The Surfer 07. Gen-X Cops 08. Mary Boone 09. Pravda 10. Hope
As for the intriguing album artwork:
In the album's cover, a man in a toppled subway car reads the May 1, 1988 edition of the New York Daily News - the cover story detailing the horrific explosion that tore the roof off Aloha Airlines flight 243. The headline quotes a survivor: "ONLY GOD WAS ABOVE US."
This new record follows 2019's Father of the Bride, Vampire Weekend's third straight No. 1 album on the Billboard 2000. It soared to an Album of the Year nomination at the Grammy Awards, though the group had to "settle" for its second Best Alternative Album Grammy.
Stay tuned for more regarding the new Vampire Weekend album - including, presumably, a new song or two premiering soon.
