April Showers, May Growers

ISSUE #274

When Vampire Weekend was getting dunked on hard in the Obama era, it was just because they were clearly the best of their class—they had much more of a thing than your Two Door Cinema Clubs or your Passion Pits. Love them or hate them, Vampire Weekend was good enough to be in the crosshairs.

Except now they’ve released the best album of their career, their first front-to-back, no-skips album for me—and I called myself a fan for all of those years. I think Only God Was Above Us might be undeniable. It’s the kind of work a band can only churn out after 15 or 20 years of exploration. That’s right, I said it—this is their In Rainbows.

As Chris Deville pointed out, the key difference here is that they broke their #1 rule—they bought a fuzzbox. This album is filled with hazy distortion, and the opening buzz in “Ice Cream Piano” declares the album’s intent as much as Harrison’s opening clang of “A Hard Day’s Night.” The result is a VW record that always surprises while reinforcing motifs they’ve been working with for years.

“Mary Boone” is my favorite, a sunny-day masterpiece, because the release comes in the form of a “Soon”–style breakbeat—a euphoric, wordless swirl, like Perfume Genius’s “Queen.” When Ezra hits that “Woo,” he hits it half a beat late—I expected it on the four—which is just the kind of subversion that makes me crack a smile on a breezy drive.

The rest of the playlist today is just as good, featuring only new songs from 2024. Special shout outs to Amber Mark’s major-key R&B spiritual and Liquid Mike’s middle-of-nowhere power pop.

And most importantly? Heems is back, baby.

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