Vampire Weekend Confirms 1st New Album In 5 Years & Austin Eclipse Concert

Vampire Weekend announced their first studio album in five years, Only God Was Above Us, due out on April 5 via Columbia Records. The band will celebrate the release with a newly announced performance at Austin’s Moody Amphitheater on April 8 at 12 p.m. CT during the upcoming total solar eclipse.

Tickets for Vampire Weekend’s Austin eclipse concert go on sale to the general public Tuesday, February 13 at 10 a.m. CT. Purchase Vampire Weekend’s Austin eclipse concert tickets via Ticketmaster.

Vampire Weekend’s Only God Was Above Us was inspired by 20th Century New York City, but the band’s Ezra Koenig, Chris Baio and Chris Tomson recorded the album in cities all over the world including Manhattan, Los Angeles, Tokyo and London. Koenig co-produced the record with longtime collaborator Ariel Rechtshaid. Vampire Weekend plans to release two singles, “Capricorn” and “Gen-X Cops,” on February 16.

Koenig penned most of the lyrics for Only God Was Above Us in 2019 and 2020.

“The 10-track magnum opus is 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,” as per a press release for the LP. “The album is direct yet complex, showing the band at once at its grittiest, and also at its most beautiful and melodic.”

The title for Only God Was Above Us comes directly from the album artwork, comprised of photos by Steven Siegel from a New Jersey subway graveyard. In the foreground of a toppled subway car, a man reads the May 1, 1988 edition of the New York Daily News with the headline, “Only God Was Above Us,” quoting a survivor of the terrifying explosion that tore the roof off Aloha Airlines flight 243.

Check out the artwork and a trailer for Only God Was Above Us featuring a snippet of music below:

Only God Was Above Us Tracklist:

1. Ice Cream Piano
2. Classical
3. Capricorn
4. Connect
5. Prep-School Gangsters
6. The Surfer
7. Gen-X Cops
8. Mary Boone
9. Pravda
10. Hope