It’s a good day for fans of indie sleaze: Vampire Weekend is back

It’s an absolutely brilliant day for people mentally stuck in 2008: Vampire Weekend, the band that became the unlikely sound of recession-core, just teased their first album in half a decade. While there’s been whispers of Only God Was Above Us for a while now – last year it made the rounds that Ezra Koenig had written a bunch of “raga-inspired” songs – it was only today that the band revealed the album’s name and it’s hotly anticipated release date, the 5th of April. Their last album, 2019’s Father of the Bride (which was also preceded by a lengthy hiatus) was their most formally challenging: featuring samples from composers like Hans Zimmer and duets with artists like Danielle Haim, it earned them their second Grammy. Given what we’ve heard about Koenig’s time spent with Terry Riley – a landmark composer who taught the frontman the Indian singing technique – we reckon Only God Was Above Us will be more of the same. “I feel like it just might be our best yet,” Chris Tomson, the band’s drummer, said in their newsletter. “10 songs, no skips”.

For the fans worried that April 5th is simply too far away, don’t fear: also in the band’s Instagram post was the news that they’d be revealing two songs – named “Capricorn” and “Gen-x Cops” – on the 16th of February. Until then, we reckon it’s the opportune time to go digging into your archives for those Vampire Weekend reliables: think baby pink shorts, blue linen shirts, a pair of Wayfarers, and really anything that could be worn by a Yuppie on a boat.