The Vaccines: Come Of Age

You can’t inoculate against growing pains.

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By God, they’re jaunty. The Vaccines on their second album have matured their catchy pop sensibility. Belters No Hope and Aftershave Ocean prove they can write songs with verses, choruses, middle eights and matching collar and cuffs, while their sense of Screaming Lord Sutchery remains in songs like Ghost Town.

They are poster boys and they have musical wit and invention, rare things for an indie guitar band. Perhaps ironically, the only downside is their inventiveness; they borrow like a latter day Nick Lowe but don’t always assimilate the way great pop singers do.

As a consequence, rockabilly roisterers sit next to George Harrison tributes (All In Vain wears its slide-guitarish riff uncomfortably) and 60s fairground exuberance stands uneasily with new-wave jerkiness.

For a band who’ve aimed for the sexy middle ground between The Ramones and The Strokes, The Vaccines sound occasionally like a Kaiser Chiefs tribute band.

David Quantick

David Quantick is an English novelist, comedy writer and critic, who has worked as a journalist and screenwriter. A former staff writer for the music magazine NME, his writing credits have included On the HourBlue JamTV Burp and Veep; for the latter of these he won an Emmy in 2015.