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Their platinum-selling debut album – What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? – packed in catchy retro numbers like If You Wanna and Post Break-Up Sex, both minor hits.
This, their sixth full-length release, sees them get back to their fuzzy guitar pop roots after less satisfying diversions into disco and spaghetti Westerns.
They open with the neat euphoria of Sometimes, I Swear. It’s a breezy beauty, but the song’s uplifting feel is subverted by Justin Young’s lyrics.
“Sometime I swear, it feels like I don’t belong anywhere,” he confides on the chorus.
The album’s theme is loss, and coming to terms with it. They’ve created a new genre here, exhilarating melancholy.
While Heartbreak Kid feels like the perfect music for a summer drive, the words tell the story of love crumbling like RAAC concrete:
“Oh, you never thought they’d leave you, but they did/Now when everybody calls you the heartbreak kid/You can’t believe they really called it quits.”
The quartet cope well with their own loss – lead guitarist Freddie Cowan left to spend more time with his young family.Tim Lanham replaced him, and they’ve brought in pop producer Andrew Wells who co-wrote last month’s instantly addictive single Love To Walk Away.
Change has given The Vaccines a fresh injection of energy and purpose.
Their mix of old-school melody and new wave drive sounds terrific. Guitars surge, the rhythm section – Arni Arnason (bass) and Yoann Intoni (drums) – punch like Sugar Ray Robinson.
Highlights include the naggingly addictive Lunar Eclipse and the deeper, richer Another Nightmare.
The album title, based on a misremembered quote from Don McLean’s American Pie, reflects the musical flowers that blossom in the junkyard of heartbreak and despair.
