What Did You Expect From The Vaccines
2/5
The Vaccines topped – or at least mid-tabled – numerous soothsaying lists for 2011. As a result, their success is pretty much assured already, because too many people with too much to lose will look too stupid if they go back on their word now. So the fact that we think this album is as dreary as a ’50s carpet swatch will probably make little difference to The Vaccines’ imminent meteoric rise. Seriously, though, it is pretty boring.
The accepted description of The Vaccines is that they’re the fuzz-tone inheritors of The Strokes-meets-Jesus And Mary Chain. But where JAMC gave the impression they were too full of junk or heartbreak to pick up the pace on the fretboard, The Vaccines sound like they’ve been dragged out of a bunk-bed to do their party piece for a living room of half-cut relatives. Although the material exhibits some range, from the punkier likes of ‘Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra Ra)’ through to the jaunty ‘Wolf Pack’, they’re largely rendered monochromatic by a paucity of new ideas. The Vaccines aren’t a bad band, on paper at least, and this isn’t an abysmal album. We just wonder what the point of it is.
