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

Also anything that gives Vampire Weekend better beats.

you're talking about the band that made "bryn" and "cousins"?

duds on mvotc: "unbelievers", "everlasting arms", "finger back", "ya hey", "hudson"

are you fucking kidding me

― ivy., Thursday, April 4, 2024 10:55 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Indefensible

you're talking about the band that made "bryn" and "cousins"?

yes, good examples of their clatter-over-groove rhythmic approach. which on a first listen I hear too much of on the new one too.

Having LOTS OF THINGS HAPPENING FAST on the drums does not equal "good beats."

Hm. I never thought of business as a VW trait/weakness.

“bryn” is pretty rhythmically weird, with the clave and the african-inspired behind the beat groove.

cousins does have lots of things happening fast, but in a good way imo

If you're looking for a traditional rhythm section, "This Life" from the last album is tight.

if you want clatter-over-groove it's there on mvotc but "bryn" and "cousins" have great drums

"Bambina" is the best song from FOTB no one's mentioned. "2021," too. Both under 2 min. The way he plays with tempo and time is really alluring to me.

what i have learned from this flurry of thread activity is that some people love Vampire Weekend and some people do not like Vampire Weekend.

I do like VW but I kind of feel that I can't really be surprised by any new VW song any more. They seem to have settled into their musical identity, which is fine. They have a pleasant and recognizable sound. But for me to really get excited about a new VW song I think it would have to have something extra, like an attention-grabbing lyric or something. I listened to the FOTB singles a few times, and then kind of forgot about the album. I feel like the same pattern may repeat this time.

like an attention-grabbing lyric or something

Like starting your album with "Fuck the world"?

first listen...

stereogum distortion/"noise" discussion p relevant; this album gets chaotic noisy in really short bursts. from shoegaze to free jazz, it seems pretty intentional. "play it fucking loud" or whatever.

lol "connect" rips off dido/"stan"

the budget just seems to get bigger + bigger, the music follows. this was their second longest break between albums. hrmph. i can say right now, i like it way more than father. feels like an intentional move to create such "BIG" sounding music. it very much has a "classic" sound in the way it was recorded. those orchestrations on something like "the surfer" simultaneously recall fleet foxes + frank sinatra. maybe he's taken the 'pop music is the classical music of today' philosophy to heart + these are his attempts. idk, def sounds like vw... just a bizarro world variant where fela kuti + brian wilson are frequent collaborators. shaun ryder likes to hang out sometimes too.
i'll leave lyric deep diving to more dedicated folks. he's got something on his mind, that's for sure. i'm just enamoured with the sound of it all. for now i'll just say it's really good + i like it a lot.

Ok I like the Surfer. Sounds like trip hop mixed with 60’s psychedelic pop. Good for you VW. Well done.

Pravda also a highlight

These dudes record more insouciant music than the analyses suggest and their lyrics portend; they make imaginary pop music that they think in an ideal world will get played alongside Jack Harlow.

that ambition on full display on the new record.

(shrug) i like the idea of music "saving the world" or whatever.

Btw I didn't like any of the singles much, but everything works much better as an album without too much weight on any one song. Ariel Reichstadt really cooked on this.

(also considering that this is supposed to be a "band" record, it's funny that all the best drum parts are sampled from someone else)

what i have learned from this flurry of thread activity is that some people love Vampire Weekend and some people do not like Vampire Weekend.

and that some people have incredibly wrong opinions about what constitutes a Vampire Weekend banger.

I'm on team "Unbelievers" is an immense banger, fwiw.

one half-attentive listen in, and I liked it a lot. going to play it more over the weekend

I like this album fine but a lot of it feels like loading up on sonic fuckery to obscure that they write the same melody over and over. I wouldn’t say “Gen-X Cops” is the best song but at least the riff has a slightly sour element instead of their standard mid tempo swooning.

I think that nails it, all the big choruses feel very similar melodically and in terms of the chord movement? Theory posse please chime in.

I also heard part of their takeover of XMU on satellite radio. I think I'm going to like this one a lot more than the last one. still love the first three.

it strikes me as very similar to MVOTC. which is my favorite album of theirs, so no complaints there really

haven't had the time to figure out the choruses to see that they're similar, but i did realize that the chorus progression of "capricorn" is pretty similar to the one from lady gaga's "shallow"

i think my favorite so far is "connect," which is just jazzy and weird enough to feel like it could've been on the glass beach album from this year

Like starting your album with "Fuck the world"?

I don’t know, that seems a half hearted effort. I think their lyrics were more provocative on their first two albums. They were singing about privilege in an unapologetic way, something you don’t often hear in rock lyrics. Their lyrics now seem kind of safe.

"Each generation makes its own apology" and "Armistice, we never tried it," and "When I come home it won't be home to you" are aphoristic in the best way imo.

Also: "fuck the world" is said by the person playing Koenig's lover iirc

On that Sirius XM XMu interview, Koenig says he invited Dev Hines of Blood Orange to hang out with them in the studio. He says he told Hines he was having trouble completing the song Prep School Gangsters. Hines wanted to assist on guitar but had a broken arm at the time. He says Hines despite the arm then managed to play drums on the cut.

Koenig also talked about a violinist & guitarist who had worked with the Killers ; and a guitarist/ sax player who will be joining them on tour. Not sure if they were on the album.

Ice Cream Piano was recorded initially when Koenig was living in London. And now he’s talking about Durruti Column

This album feels like a reversion to… everything I ever liked about VW.

Yeah I went in a bit skeptical but after a few plays I like it. There are plenty of lovely moments. I’m not sure there are tracks as strong as their best but I like « The Surfer » and « Hope » a lot so far. In the former the transition from the verse to the solo/chorus with the horns is absolutely beautiful. And it may be a grower since I didn’t care much about the singles but they’re fine in the context of the album (except “GenX cops » which is the only track I don’t like).

“gen x cops” is one of the best ones on here

Eheh it’s a good sign when people have totally different favourite tracks on an album ! I’m not a big fan of their faster tracks in general

This album feels like a reversion to… everything I ever DISliked about VW.

OK, that's an overstatement, I like several songs here. But things like "Connect" and "Mary Boone" to me drown in their unnecessary busy-ness and ornamentation. "The Surfer" and "Pravda" probably my faves, "Gen-X Cops" is good, "Hope" is good but goes on a bit.

I think what I still really want is an Ezra solo album with Danielle Haim on hand and, I don't know, Questlove producing or something.

"The Surfer," see, is the one that sounds busy. "Hope" is better realized, but as I played it while showering an hour ago I wondered if it earned its extended coda.

The Surfer has a lot of sonic layers but it doesn't feel cluttered to me, because the dubby spaciousness gives a lot of room. But also I just like the tune.

i'm going to be obnoxious re:the long vampout on "hope" + say damn wonder if those dudes were listening to any fishmans recently.

I like "Hope" but it sounds really familiar and I keep trying to figure out what existing songs it sounds like. I'm pretty sure the verses are "99 Luftballons," but what is the chorus?

it's "kids don't stand a chance" through the looking glass. the call really was coming from inside!

(sorry just getting tired of seeing the "he's ripping off himself!"* critique. of course he is, he's him.)

*not here. elsewhere online.

chorus of “hope” isn’t reminding me of anything particular, but it feels like a very fundamental melody, like an old folk song or nursery rhyme

funny to see luft balloons mentioned in the context of Hope. I read someone else suggest that Ice Cream Piano sounds a bit like it when it revs up, which I can kinda hear.

Yeah « Hope » has something very simple/trad/anthemic. I really like the beat and how the song builds up.

« Pravda » has a nice afropop riff like on their first album and I like it but it feels like it doesn’t really go anywhere and is not fully finished. But again it may be a grower

on the contrary: it's one of the two or three best developed songs, including lyrically

Pravda is a sleeper hit for me. Masterfully restrained until the final third goes into the psychedelic deep end. The chord progression in the verse is brilliant, incredibly affecting ("Irina grew up in Wisconsin").