It was joyous news for Vampire Weekend fans on Thursday night after announced their first new album since 2019.
The band have since their formation in 2006, scoring three number one albums.
Father of the Bride, their most recent record, was released in 2019 and was eventually certified Silver in the UK – the band have been silent ever since.
That was, at least, until this week, when they announced fifth album Only God Was Above Us, slated for release on April 5 – along with two brand new songs.
Gen-X Cops and Capricorn, their first singles since the likes of This Life and Harmony Hall, will be officially unveiled simultaneously on February 16.
The album will be their first not to be released on an independent label, with the group now signed to Columbia, a label owned by the larger Sony Music Group.
Describing it as a ’10-song magnum-opus’, a statement said of the album: ‘The product of five years spent refining, reworking and gradually shaping those lyrical and melodic structures to take Vampire Weekend to a new creative peak.’
The statement continued: ‘The album is direct yet complex, showing the band at once at its grittiest, and also at its most beautiful and melodic.’
Its artwork comes from a collection of photographs taken in 1988 of a subway graveyard, where disused trains on New Jersey and New York’s underground transit system are left.
The group consists of lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist Ezra Koenig, bassist Chris Baio, and drummer Chris Thompson, who have all been in the band since its inception.
Former member Rostam Batmanglij, who left the group in 2016, has written and produced for acts such as Carly Rae Jepsen, Charli XCX, Frank Ocean, Haim, and Solange, as well as having work featured on the Barbie soundtrack.
Koenig, meanwhile, was nominated for a Grammy after his involvement with Beyoncé’s 2016 album Lemonade – he was given a songwriting credit on album track Hol’ Up after tweeting words that were later used as lyrics.
During their heyday, the band’s biggest hit to date, A-Punk, released in 2008, was featured on the soundtracks of films such as Step Brothers and TV series such as The Inbetweeners.
Their music was also featured in other works, such as US dramas Friday Night Lights and Grey’s Anatomy, UK teen comedy drama Skins, and US comedy How I Met Your Mother.
After their self-titled debut album reached the UK top 20, it was eventually certified platinum in the UK. Their 2010 follow-up, Contra, reached the UK top five and went Gold, while their third album Modern Vampires of the City reached the top three and was certified Gold shortly after its release.
In support of the album, Vampire Weekend are set to perform alongside the likes of the Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, and Neil Young at the New Orleans Jazz Festival in April and May 2024.
