Years ago when my brothers and I were navigating boredom, the three of us would ritualistically play Lego Rock Band on the Wii nearly every afternoon. With a solid line up of three songs, we’d spend hours alternating who sang, who played the guitar and who was on the drums. These songs consisted of Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name,” Good Charlotte’s “Girls and Boys” and Vampire Weekend’s “A-punk.”
If you had asked any of us if we liked Vampire Weekend, we would have had no idea what you were talking about. In fact, this is the response from the majority of people when learning that this artist was responsible for the pseudo-beach-boys song, “A-Punk.” It was certainly mine.
I’ve heard none of this band’s songs since my obsession with “A-punk” as an ignorant kid, but this past weekend, the band released their fifth studio album titled, “Only God Above Us.” With an open mind and literally no expectations, I want to take you along with me, track by track, on my first real introduction to this band.
Ice Cream Piano
They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. In this instance, this isn’t exactly true. But as far as first impressions go for this album, this song is alive. The background piano playing the same few chords over and over sounds reminiscent of the songs that ice cream trucks play to lure children out onto the streets. One track in and I’m tuned in.
Classical
There’s more than one track on the album that the title prepared me to expect something. “Classical” is one of those, priming my ears for cellos and trumpets. Though I thought I knew what I’d be heading into with this piece, “Classical” is anything but a slow orchestral song. It’s driven by the electric guitar scales littered throughout the piece. So far, it seems like each track draws attention to one instrument’s capabilities, which is a really intriguing thing to hinge an album on.
Capricorn
Before starting this one, I googled characteristics of a capricorn, as I hardly know anything about astrology. The top three Google spit out at me were hardworking, ambitious and unforgiving. Right. So this song should be abrasive at least, right? Nope. Picture a cool lit bar scene where two people are meeting and falling in love at first sight over some band improvising on the stage. I can almost hear the girl in this scene yelling over the music, “So, what’s your name?”
Halfway through, “Capricorn” shifts and we follow our lead characters as they run through the rain to get to something reckless to do. This might be my favorite kind of song.
Connect
Alright, THIS is more or what I expected “Classical” would sound like. I’m surprised by the range of genres represented in not only this album, but in each song. The band seems to have a pretty good grasp on how to blend and what to blend.
In this song, we’ve got an instrumental break! When I think of rock, this kind of musical range is not what comes to mind. If “Connect,” was already queued up to score some indie short film, I’d hardly be surprised. I think here we’re still following the same couple from “Capricorn,” but they are now pursuing recklessness when it’s a bit colder.
Prep-School Gangsters
Beautiful as it was, I think my brain needed a break from the tempo of that last track, so I’m grateful that “Prep-school Gangsters” isn’t what I was expecting. I think I could listen to this while getting my morning coffee and feel appropriately backed up by the music. This song could also easily be part of the soundtrack to a Wes Anderson movie about high school.
The Surfer
Oh boy. If you know anything about me, it’s that I wish I grew up on a beach so bad. Therefore, the name of this track got me pumped.
Maybe it’s because the title primed me, but the shaky single keys played for the first minute and a half of the track sound like water droplets on a camera recording two people surfing in the rain. I think most songs on this album are set to the sounds of rain. This song doesn’t provide the kind of surfy vibe that makes you want to vacation, but the kind that makes you want to be a local.
Gen-X Cops
Not that writing about politics can ruin artists, but writing about politics can ruin artists. One of my all time favorite artists, Hobo Johnson has recently started to write on elections, global warming and the government and to be honest, it’s made it hard to listen and not feel like I’m being pumped full of a heavy dosage of agenda. Since my reviews have mostly focused on vibes rather than lyrics up to this point, I’ll keep my critique on this limited to my preconceptions heading into the track.
With a similar beat to quite a few of the previous tracks, “Gen-X Cops” keeps driving home the idea that Vampire Weekend is diverse, but on a base level aware of what works.
Mary Boone
Just when I started to think that this album was out of fresh ideas, “Mary Boone” started to play. This is the poppiest sounding track on the album thus far. This track is reminiscent of the early days of the late band, “fun” With a build up long enough to deceive listeners about what remains of the song, “Mary Boone” takes a crack at the pop genre and disguises itself quite nicely.
Pravda
I expected this to be some play on the Italian luxury brand, Prada. In the words of Vampire Weekend, however, “it’s just the Russian word for truth.” Makes sense why the guitar lick sounds like Spain rather than Italy… I guess. Regardless of if it makes sense or not, I’m obsessed with the Spanish guitar scale that litters this song. It is lovely and feels oddly familiar.
Hope
At 4:35, the credits start to roll so clearly in my mind. I’m certain I’ve been watching a rom com for the 47 minute duration of this album. With a run time of eight minutes, the song allows plenty of time to get to the “produced by” part of the credits and for the screen to fade to black with unrushed finality.
Final Thoughts
In my opinion, it was hard to tell that this album was written and released by the same band that wrote one of my favorite Lego Rock Band songs. Their sound used to be scratchier and younger. This, however, by no means means that the album has failed. “Only God Above Us” left a fine taste in my mouth for innovative and hugely diverse music. I think this album feels consistently exciting and yet doesn’t distract from the base level talent of Vampire Weekend. I wouldn’t be shocked to find myself queuing this album again along with our three tried-and-true, no name Rock Band songs.
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