Vampire Weekend are released a new album, “Only God Was Above Us”, on April 5th via Columbia Records. Yesterday, they shared its third single, “Classical,” via a music video. The song features saxophonist Henry Solomon. Nick Harwood directed the video, which features a whole lot of green screen, and also features appearances by Ariel Rechtshaid, Ray Suen, and the band’s drum tech, Josh Goldsmith.
Previously the band shared its first two singles: “Capricorn” and “Gen-X Cops.”
Vampire Weekend’s tour will feature various support acts, depending on the date, including LA LOM, The English Beat, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Mike Gordon, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Ra Ra Riot, Princess featuring Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum, Cults, a DJ Set By Mark Ronson, Turnstiles (a Billy Joel tribute band), and The Brothers Macklovitch. In select cities they are doing evening shows on a Saturday night, followed by a matinee show the next day.
Previously Vampire Weekend had shared a trailer for the album, as well as its tracklist and cover artwork.
“Only God Was Above Us” is the band’s fifth album, their first new album in five years, and the follow-up to “Father of the Bride”. debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart with the largest first week sales for any rock album in 2019, It was also nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys.
Vampire Weekend is Ezra Koenig, Chris Baio, and Chris Tomson. Koenig wrote most of the album’s lyrics in 2019 and 2020 and the band have been refining the album since then, recording in various cities around the world, including New York, Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo. Koenig produced the album with long time collaborator Ariel Rechtshaid and it was mixed by Dave Fridmann and mastered by Emily Lazar.
A press release promises that the album is “direct yet complex, showing the band at once at its grittiest, and also at its most beautiful and melodic.”
The album’s cover artwork also inspired its title. It is a photo taken in 1988 by Steven Siegel at a subway graveyard in New Jersey. In the photo is a man sitting in a turned over subway car, reading the May 1, 1988 edition of The New York Daily News. The cover of the newspaper details an airplane accident on Aloha Airlines flight 243, when an explosion tore the roof off. The headline of the newspaper quotes a survivor saying, “Only God was above us,” which is now the title of the new album.
The Fat Angel Sings 