Vampire Weekend - Only God Was Above Us

Vampire Weekend - Only God Was Above Us2LP Columbia (2024) WW Arriving nearly half a decade on from what was already a long awaited comeback album in Father Of The Bride in 2019, Vampire Weekend present their fifth long player. Only God Was Above Us finds Ezra Koenig, Chris Baio and Chris Tomson teaming up once again with long time producer Ariel Rechtshaid for an album of melodic, globetrotting musical influences anchored in some of the grittiest, most overtly NYC esque productions of

a sprawling 17-song punk/funk/hip-hop hybrid awash in sexual innuendo and references to drugs and death

this is a 15th anniversary edition of 2000 individually numbered copies on pink & purple marbled vinyl

As its title would suggest

if I were to write a true City Pop song

both strangely and satisfyingly

Beeping synth and basslines and sharp toothed rhythms zip about the album

recording or touring

This is the setting where the band's eighth album took shape

As well as being forever immortalized as the moment when the counterculture and the ‘Love Generation' became a global phenomenon and ‘pop' began metamorphosing into ‘rock'

It’s evident on first single “Skin Game

comprised of bilingual Anglo-Japanese singer Sarah and producers Gus and Jamie

as well as