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The primary phrase on the brand new Vampire Weekend album is “fuck.” You heard it right here first. (Except you learn that Mojo evaluation or that Rolling Stone UK characteristic.) The tune in query is “Ice Cream Piano,” and it’s most likely the very best opening observe on a Vampire Weekend report but. “You speak of Serbians/Whisper Kosovar Albanians/The boy’s Romanian/Third-generation Transylvanian,” Ezra Koenig sings. In all probability Koenig’s largest energy as a composer is writing lyrics that make you marvel how the hell he truly sings these phrases, a trait that was largely absent from Vampire Weekend’s final album, 2019’s Father Of The Bride.
Solely God Was Above Us seems like a kind of return-to-form LPs that many indie-rock darlings have been making. It might be Vampire Weekend’s We or The New Irregular or A Moon Formed Pool. After I first heard the singles—“Capricorn,” with its arpeggiated piano chords, and “Gen-X Cops,” with its high-energy guitar riff—I couldn’t assist however really feel like Solely God Was Above Us was shaping as much as be a Vampire-Weekend-by-numbers report.
On one hand, what’s the issue with that? There have been moments on Father Of The Bride the place I missed the Vampire Weekend that wrote “Walcott.” Not shocking, given drummer Chris Tomson and bassist Chris Baio have been fully absent from Father Of The Bride. It’s an excellent album, nevertheless it’s the completely different one. It’s Vampire Weekend’s Trompe Le Monde or First Impressions Of Earth. Hit single “Concord Corridor” seemed like a jam band and likewise if the Stones, not Vampire Weekend, wrote a tune for a Cadillac industrial. Once you hear a tune like the brand new “Capricorn” and it sounds a lot like Vampire Weekend that you would simply swap it for an earlier observe like “Step” or “Taxi Cab,” you begin to marvel why this Kool-Assist tastes so good.
In all probability the most important motive why is as a result of, in contrast to on Father Of The Bride, Koenig, Tomson and Baio truly collaborated on Solely God Was Above Us. So it sounds a lot like Vampire Weekend as a result of all of Vampire Weekend is definitely on it. Go determine.
On “Prep-College Gangsters” (one of the vital Vampire Weekend-esque tune titles ever), Tomson and Baio lock in on a basic indie-rock groove that units the inspiration for wistful guitar harmonies and African-inspired melodies. “Someplace in your loved ones tree, there was somebody identical to me,” Koenig sings as his voice soars into an arresting falsetto. On this observe particularly, you possibly can really feel the summer season nights on the band’s upcoming amphitheater tour. It’s good to have Vampire Weekend again. [Columbia]
—Jacob Paul Nielsen
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