Vampire Weekend announce details of new album ‘Only God Was Above Us’ – with two new tracks on the way
Vampire Weekend have shared details of their fifth studio album ‘Only God Was Above Us’, confirming that two new songs are incoming.
The New York band are due to release the 10-track record on April 5 via Columbia. You can pre-order/pre-save it here.
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Following on from 2019’s ‘Father Of The Bride’, Vampire Weekend’s first full-length project in five years was recorded all over the world, from Manhattan to Los Angeles to London and Tokyo.
Next Friday (February 16), the group will release two brand-new songs: ‘Capricorn’ and ‘Gen-X Cops’.
The album is said to have been “inspired and haunted by 20th Century New York City”, and was primarily produced by frontman Ezra Koenig and longtime collaborator Ariel Rechtshaid (Haim, Brandon Flowers).
‘Only God Was Above Us’ dates back to 2019-2020, when Koenig wrote most of the lyrics for the LP.
A press description adds: “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.”
It continues: “‘Only God Was Above Us’ is nothing short of a definitive statement – one that begins on a playfully profane and confrontational note, and runs a gauntlet of emotions, experiences, characters and stories, before ending on an unambiguous note of acceptance… and quite literally ‘Hope’.”
The artwork is comprised of photographs taken from a subway graveyard in New Jersey back in 1988.
Shot by Steven Siegel, the album’s cover sees a man reading a 1988 edition of the New York Daily News. The paper’s cover story details an airplane accident in Hawaii, with the headline quoting one of the survivors: “ONLY GOD WAS ABOVE US.” See it above along with a video trailer.
The full tracklist for Vampire Weekend’s ‘Only God Was Above Us’ is as follows:
‘Ice Cream Piano’
‘Classical’
‘Capricorn’
‘Connect’
‘Prep-School Gangsters’
‘The Surfer’
‘Gen-X Cops’
‘Mary Boone’
‘Pravda’
‘Hope’
What’s more, Vampire Weekend will play a special album launch show at the Moody Amphitheater in Austin, Texas on April 8 during the historic total eclipse. Tickets go on general sale at 10am CT next Tuesday (February 13). Visit here for more information.
Today’s announcement comes after Vampire Weekend recently teased new music by sharing a cryptic video on their social media accounts.
In other news, the band have been announced as headliners for this year’s edition of Hinterland Festival. They will also perform at the New Orleans Jazz Festival alongside Foo Fighters, The Rolling Stones and Neil Young. Other appearances are scheduled for Primavera Sound and Kilby Block Party.
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Tom Skinner
NME
