Vampire Weekend’s fifth studio album, and first in five years, showcases a sound that seems to span worlds, blending gritty realism with ethereal beauty in equal measure. Recorded across the globe, from the streets of Manhattan to the sprawling areas of Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo, Only God Was Above Us is a combination of the band's global travels and sonic ambition. Produced primarily by frontman Ezra Koenig and longtime collaborator Ariel Rechtshaid, with mixing by Dave Fridmann, the album is a well-crafted body of work that defies easy categorization.

The beginnings of Only God Was Above Us can be traced back to 2019-2020, when Koenig penned the majority of the album's lyrics. Over the course of five years, the band painstakingly refined and reworked these lyrical and melodic structures. The result is a 10-track creation showing Vampire Weekend at their most direct and complex, from the playful irreverence of the opening track to the hopefulness of the closing note.

The title itself is drawn from the album's striking artwork, featuring photos taken by Steven Siegel in a subway graveyard in New Jersey in 1988. In one image, a man sits amidst the wreckage of a toppled subway car, reading a newspaper with the headline "ONLY GOD WAS ABOVE US," a chilling reminder of the fragility of life.

Only God Was Above Us is Vampire Weekend's first album since their critically acclaimed Father Of The Bride, which dominated the charts and earned the band their second Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album, and solidified their place as one of the preeminent bands of their generation.