Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend. Photo via Sony Music.
It's been nearly five years since Vampire Weekend released Father of the Bride, the blog era-defining rock band's fourth studio album. Work on the follow-up has been ongoing since at least 2021, and in December 2023 the band's Chris Baio announced that the new raga-inspired album had been completed. In a potential sign that we could get more concrete news soon, Vampire Weekend have updated their website and social media pages with teasers alluding to something called “OGWAU.”
A video posted to their Instagram page contains a snippet of music and what appears to be muddy, old home movies. Watch below via Stereogum. Vampire Weekend's Twitter page and website (which now sports a phone number that you can text for updates from the band) have also been updated with a photograph by Steven Siegel taken in a New Jersey junkyard.
The title “OGWAU" is likely an anagram, and it could stand for Only God Was Above Us. A Reddit user shared another photo by Siegel from the same series that contains the phrase on an issue of the Daily News published in 1988 (the phrase was taken from a story about a flight to Hawaii where the plane's roof was suddenly torn-off mid-flight).
I'm pretty convinced that "Only God Was Above Us" is the name Vampire Weekend have chosen, but if it's not, the next Future mixtape has its title. The FADER has reached out for more information.
