vampire weekend - only god was above us, out april 5, 2024

it leaked a few days ago, it's on soulseek

"there is a gigantic, very frustrating contrast between how clever some of the arrangements are and how bored i am by the songwriting though"

this may be a very basic question - from a musician at that - but what's the difference between good arranging and good songwriting? isn't it...at some level...all the same craft?

Idk, I think you can work very hard to gussy up an ok song with ear candy at every moment. That feels like what's happening hear, although it would be interesting to hear more stripped down versions.

only been into these guys casually. remember liking modern vampires + really liking contra. haven't revisited in a while. will do that, but checking out the few new songs on the internet jukebox ahead of the proper release right now. they do seem to have gone fully technicolor sunshine pop revival (keep in mind, i skipped bride entirely). i like "classical" a lot. very bright music. the new material has me excited to see what else is in store.

^FotB was, to somewhat oversimplify things, their jam band influenced release with some country and baggy elements thrown in to ... divisive effect. i was a huge fan of the record at the time, but i don't know if it has aged super well over the past 5 years. i forget where i read this but somewhere someone wrote that it feels more like a Time Crisis LP more than a VW LP. Koenig has confirmed that Chris Tomson and Chris Baio had no involvement with it beyond touring it.

the new LP feels more like revisiting their past work (particularly MVotC) through a more wizened and melancholy perspective with deliberately harsher sonics. feels kinda fan servicey, but damn if it doesn't hit me right in the feels quite a bit lol

by songwriting i mean the core of the song - the melody/chords etc., with the arrangement being everything else around that. as anza says, "the surfer" transitions from a 90s hip hop beat to sounding like something from all things must pass and that's a pretty cool fusion and progression. the song itself though is just ok, i'm not really moved by it despite really liking what the arrangement is doing. the hooks aren't there!

fotb is a bit inconsistent but i like it more than this one.

I'm on record as saying FotB is the only VW album I like and have listened to more than once (particularly my playlist version). But listening to all the Time Crisis eps got me through the pandemic (even though I also hate the Dead and jam bands).

this is better than mvotc (their worst) at least i will give it that

― ufo, Tuesday, April 2, 2024 6:54 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

hoping that often-right poster ufo is wrong and the album is good. this is giving me hope (i love mvotc)

really have no idea what to say to the argument that MVOTC is their worst album

It took me a few listens to get beyond the feeling that it was a rehash, but now I like it a lot. The songs aren't as challenging or developed as Contra, and it doesn't feel as heavy as MVOTC, but I think the relative looseness of it is a nice through line and I find it frankly already a lot more listenable than FOTB, which five years later I still think is their worst. It's probably the most I've let an album of theirs wash over me, and the album of theirs I think most benefits from a soft listen, if that makes sense. I also find the thematic unity of it (let go the hatred in your heart o critical one) mollifying, or at least useful as a midlife/long-haul sentiment. I agree the arrangements and sonic juxtapositions are pulling a lot of weight, but I also don't really see the issue there from a critical vantage in part because I find the juxtapositions interesting.

mvotc is so clunky and plodding and the arrangements are really hollow and flimsy.

contra is their best and the debut is still very good too

Yeah but mvotc has "step".

i love how quiet the drums are in the mix of "classical." he's gone tin pan via dark star. overall, it kinda reminds me of how bill bruford described his time in yes: everything was an influence + it all had to get represented in their songs. similar vibe here, just without the intentional technical pyrotechnics.

he's asking a valid question in the chorus, too. other new songs are good. "classical" is promising a lot, though.

mvotc is so clunky and plodding and the arrangements are really hollow and flimsy.

i really disagree w/ this but i also think it's ezra's best songwriting across an album from a lyrical & melodic perspective. maybe the debut beats it & i do love the debut but that's a very "specific time in my life" album that i don't return to. if we're talking like objective VW album rankings i'd have to consider it more deeply but i haven't played it front to back in a really long time. i love contra, it has some of my fav songs by them, the homoeroticism of the back half of that record in particular still lingers, i just think as a front to back listen it sags in places where modern vampires does not

i honestly can't see an argument for any record aside from FOTB being their worst unless you're someone like jordan who doesn't like their other records and is coming at it from a totally different POV. i think conceptually it was an interesting direction and i liked a lot of the visual aesthetics and even some of the songs, "this life" is amazing, "big blue" etc but yeah the songs on that album just don't stand up to the rest of their discog imo

I'm on record as saying FotB is the only VW album I like

lol me too. I don't particularly care about the other guys' involvement or that it's mostly a Koenig-and-friends album, it has so many good tunes (and/or likable ones, not always the same thing). It could lose some, but I don't mind the meandering. Not very into the singles from this one, but I'll give it a listen. I think Koenig is talented, whatever else he may be.

Like, "Mary Boone" is OK, but it mostly makes me want to hear "Harmony Hall." (By far the VW song I encounter the most in the wild.)

Since Contra I've thought that Koenig's one of those white songwriters whose sensibilities most mesh with mine: inquisitive, well-schooled in rock/pop/rap history enough to know how much a light sheen of electronics plus forcebeat + dub rhythms will put over these songs about being privileged enough. For me they made no bad albums. "Giving Up the Gun" and "Diplomat's Son" are two of my favorite songs of the last two decades.

FOTB is their weakest, I guess, but as an experiment in opening up their sound after the departure of their most crucial member it committed venal sins. He never sounded warmer while at the same interrogating how warm he could go.

that's a very "specific time in my life" album that i don't return to.

how I feel about all Vampire Weekend albums

“Harmony Hall” was in my top ten songs of whatever year that was, but the parent record didn’t really hold my attention beyond maybe 4-5 songs. Save the duets and left turns for your solo record, Ezra!

Which in essence FOTB was.

he was outright calling it a solo album in a recent interview

I appreciate the acknowledgment of that in their recent press, as at the time it wasn’t really talked about by EK at all. (I know I was kind of a jerk about it back then, but it just felt really weird.)

"This Life" is an all-time jam and easily one of their top five best.

agree

I thought I didn't really care about Vampire Weekend until "Harmony Hall," so we'll see how this one lands for me

Here we go

https://www.stereogum.com/2257327/vampire-weekend-only-god-was-above-us/reviews/premature-evaluation/

I’ll agree MVOTC is clunky but it also has “hannah hunt” which might be my favorite song in their catalogue.

"hannah hunt" is one of the few highlights on it yeah

BNM'd over at Pitchfork as well

like with mvotc what happened to their wonderful sense of rhythm on the first two albums? gone completely

I have never understood why Hannah Hunt is held in such high regard relative to the rest of their catalog. I loved the first three VW albums to death, played them constantly, and never connected with that song.

among other reasons, “hannah hunt” is extremely pretty and has the moment where ezra goes up an octave to sing the last chorus

understand where ufo is coming from about the rhythmic sameness of much of mvotc, but it definitely marked a lyrical and melodic level-up in my book, that made up for their transition into a somewhat more traditional rock outfit.

Cool cool -- no consensus as ever.

In the spirit of no consensus, I'll just throw out that I don't get the love for Contra at all. And I quite like the two surrounding albums

mvotc definitely not a melodic level up, first two albums are just jam-packed with hooks and the melodies on mvotc are not completely there - there's some good ones but also plenty that are lacking

another thing is that baio's high melodic basslines worked well very well with the styles of the first two albums but playing in the same way doesn't work anywhere near as well for mvotc's plodding chamber pop tunes and it just leaves the songs feeling empty at the bottom end

the new one really makes it obvious how fotb was a completely different band though, you can very much hear the rhythm section's distinct style is back, but it fits better here than on mvotc. i just wish koenig had written some tunes though

I can hum "Diane Young," "Worship You," "Everlasting Arms," "Unbelievers," especially "Step."

Curious - do any of you go back to Father of the Bride? I probably haven’t listened to it since the year it came out, although the line “we go together like Keats and Yeats” still pops into mind with disconcerting frequency.

Well I love Hannah Hunt because it’s just such a well written song. The breakup metaphors in the lyrics are simple, but smart. I also love how nothing overstays its welcome… just as you’re about to get impatient by it, it explodes into this brief emotional outburst and then just fades away calmly. It also breaks my heart and I had no idea VW were capable of doing that. I just sort of thought of them as a sunny, quirky band of privileged kids.

Sure. "Unbearably White," "Jerusalem, New York, Berlin," "Harmony Hall," a couple others I'm forgetting. "This Life," like I said, is an all-timer.

so i revisited everything the past few days. thoughts...

first album is fun! they sounded like talking heads a little bit and that was cool. "kids don't stand a chance" is a big tune. 3 mics.

contra hangs together as an album really well. i think that's what makes me like this one a lot more than the first: it has more depth. everything about it: songs are more layered, sequencing tells a better story, just overall amelioration. and "giving up the gun" is on it. 4 mics.

modern vampires was so easy to like because it felt like a pure pop makeover of contra. why wouldn't you like more of a good thing? i like "hannah" a lot but it just doesn't hit the same independent of its album neighbors. it's kind of another 'all or nothing' listen. but always satisfying, even a decade later. 4 mics.

i had never heard father before yesterday. it's alright. idk. country flourishes 'n schitt. it's still pretty new to me, but yes we'll go with 'messy transitional album' for now. it's doing too much, but sounds alright while doing it. same kinda energy as mj putting up 63 and the bulls still losing. oh well, was fun to see! 3 mics (for now).

i will say this to end: none of their material has ever resonated with me as instantly as "classical" has.

imo, all their albums are good to great and jam-packed with hooks. MV happens to be my favorite, too, but I won't argue with anyone who says Contra is best.

Contra remains my favorite, but like j0rdan remarked yesterday, the queer back half colors my reaction.

mvotc is full of piano lines you can sing, they're as strong as the vocal melodies imo

contra is my fav as well, but it's a matter of degrees with the first three. fotb is great tho, and seeing it live upped my appreciation. "jerusalem, new york, berlin" is my fav from that one.

the photo used for this cover art:
https://i.imgur.com/AGfjNLr.jpeg

Looking at FotB I can sing at least Big Blue, 2021, Married in a Gold Rush, and Sunflower without having listened to it in awhile. I also think the 'jam band' thing is way overblown and probably repeated uncritically from the press release/interviews, I mean it's all tightly structured songs without any more instrumental breaks than the new songs.

Also it seems like they may as well make Ariel Reichstadt a band member.

the jam band-y stuff did come through in a live setting. they stretched "sunflower" out to 9 mins, for example.

contra is an album so jam-packed with ideas and hooks that they could have probably made an entire career out of the sound of just one of the songs on it

"mvotc is full of piano lines you can sing, they're as strong as the vocal melodies imo"

this is true of some songs on Contra as well. Taxi Cab comes to mind.

xps I like "Hannah Hunt" quite a bit too. FWIW, whenever I play Vampire Weekend, it's a 16-cut mix drawn from their first three albums, and placed right after "Run," "Hannah Hunt" makes a bigger impression.

The new one's not bad, but I'm still much more partial to their records with Rostam Batmanglij. They're still a singles band to me, and at least going by what's listed here as 'singles,' with the exception of "Horchata," the other 14 from those first three albums are pretty much the ones I go back to, along with "Obvious Bicycle" and "Hannah Hunt."