Vampire Weekend are officially back with the announcement of their new album, Only God Was Above Us, out April 5th via Columbia Records.
Marking Vampire Weekend’s first full-length in five years, Only God Was Above Us clocks in at 10 tracks. Inspired by 20th-century New York City, the album was recorded in Manhattan, Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo, with vocalist/guitarist Ezra Koenig sharing production duties with longtime collaborator Ariel Rechtshaid. It was mixed by Dave Fridmann and mastered by Emily Lazar.
Koenig penned the majority of the lyrics to Only God Was Above Us in 2019-2020, and spent the next five years with bandmates Chris Baio and Chris Tomson fleshing out the lyrical and melodic structures. The album is described in a press release as “direct yet complex, showing the band at once at its grittiest, and also at its most beautiful and melodic.”
The album’s title comes from the cover artwork, which features photos taken in 1988 by Steven Siegel at a subway graveyard in New Jersey. In the artwork, a man reads the May 1st, 1988 edition of the New York Daily News, which features the headline, “Only God Was Above Us,” in reference to the explosion on Aloha Airlines Flight 243.
Only God Was Above Us follows 2019’s Father of The Bride. Currently, Vampire Weekend are slated to headline Kilby Block Party and will play Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival. They will also play an album release show on April 8th at Austin’s Moody Amphitheater to coincide with the total solar eclipse (tickets for that show are available on Ticketmaster beginning Tuesday, February 13th).
Only God Was Above Us Artwork:
Only God Was Above Us Tracklist:
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