4/5
Ladies and Gentlemen...The Weekend.
Above us, only sky...and one of the best New Music Friday's in recent memory. And this is a week after 'Cowboy Carter' Beyoncé and a week before the new Maggie Rogers, 'Don't Forget'. Not to mention the 'Tortured Poets Department' of Taylor Swift in a year that's already seen so many big albums from Green Day to Norah Jones. This week, we get a new album from The Black Keys for you 'Ohio Players', partly produced by Beck, who's in town (Tokyo) this week for two acoustic sets on the same Saturday. And that's before we even unpack the new J. Cole mixtape before he deletes it later and all that beef with Kendrick Lamar cooked up. But before all that, how about one of the best modern day rock acts who brought the enthusiasm back like the final season of Curb? Pretty, pretty good, Vampire Weekend matched iconic album covers in polos with endearing earworms that stayed with you longer than that last single about sleeping around that just didn't stick or take. Now, for their first official album since the departure of keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij ('Father Of The Bride' like Steve Martin in 2019, was originally meant to be a solo), the big-three aren't claiming they're bigger than Jesus, like The Beatles...but maybe they're that little bit closer.
This Daily News love letter column to New York City and its hip-hop like graffiti subways is a beast, boy. It'll have you walking the walls like Spider-Man, or the stress of your morning commute when you just wish you could web yourself out of there. This fifth album from the indie rock and roll act is a killer, carriage to carriage. Manhattan, Los Angeles, London and here in Tokyo all played host to sensational studio sessions that stirred this new material, pressed like blue jeans. The result in this 20th century New York City aesthetic is modern art for your Guggenheim and MoMA's. 'Only God Was Above Us' is not narcissism from remaining members Ezra Koenig, bassist Chris Baio and drummer Chris Tomson, but actually the real Daily News headline from May 1st, 1988. Recounting the Aloha Airlines Flight 243 incident, that saw structural failure resulting in the aircraft's roof being torn off mid-flight. As one passenger so eloquently put it, when they should have understandably been truly terrified, "only God..." This album, debuted on vivid vocalist Koenig's 40th birthday, during the total solar eclipse (what a way to celebrate...above us only a blacked out sky), features the dual single stokes 'Gen-X Cops' and the new classic 'Capricorn' (which I'm doing everything I can to not send to the girl I'm currently talking to whose birthday is in January. Keep it cool, man. Keep it cool). And the latest 'Classical' and 'Mary Boone'. Not to mention the perfect summer smashes to come in 'Ice Cream Piano' and The Beach Boys meets Simon and Garfunkel sounding name, 'The Surfer'.
"Capricorn, the year that you were born/Finished fast and the next one wasn't yours/Too old for dyin' young, too young to live alone/Sifting through centuries, for moments of your own." See! Look! I'm doing it already! Yet you can't deny the classic music video that brings all of NYC together, even though I'll probably get rejected after this. Searching to 'Connect', like us all, the other weekend, with all the letters reference the late, great, best frontman ever Michael Hutchence and INXS as they sing, "The memories don't fade/Surprisin' fate for days/You elegantly wasted/Before you lost your spark/Took acid in the park/We're livin' in a basement." Back to life, after the Jonesin 'Mary' of sampling Soul II Soul, these 'Prep-School Gangsters' walk on a side wilder than classic NY Reeds. 'Pravda' is no knock-off Prada bag on the side walk, but instead, "the Russian word for truth", as this band have "waited through the wars of winter/I've watched the cherry blossoms bloom/I cannot wait here any longer/I'm leaving at the rising of the moon/I know what lies beneath Manhattan." Storming these drains and giving us another legacy maker in their signature, sealed and delivered. This Ariel Rechtshaid (the Rick Rubin to their Beastie Boys) produced game ends with almost eight minutes of 'Hope' and the wise words of, "The flag that flew is on the ground/The painting burned, the statue drowned/I hope you let it go/The moving train accelerates/It's always fast and always late/It never leaves the Empire State/I hope you let it go." And you should do so...because it will come back. Even in a New York minute, this is one you'll never forget, like the eclipse. We hope you've packed your glasses...and your earbuds. Above us and around us...nothing else but the grace of God. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'Ice Cream Piano', 'Capricorn', 'The Surfer'.
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