Album Review: The Vaccines - 'Back In Love City'
A new thirteen track counting LP by one of Britain’s vital guitar bands, The Vaccines! The band have been setting the bar since their debut in 2011 and are back with their fifth studio album, which is one of their most euphoric ones to date.
‘Back In Love City’ kicks off with the anthemic title track, fast paced and thrilling, it is a great opener of this record. Steadily paced, with intriguing harmonies and a solid soundscape, it’s the formula for hits and The Vaccines are one of the ones that wrote that formula! We pick up the pace with ‘Alone Star’ and ‘Headphones Baby’, which sound like a reimagination of ‘If You Wanna’, with similar vocal lines and a brass-filled soundscape. Both sounding much like previously released tracks, yet still being that breath of newness that we’ve been longing for from the band.
With ‘Wanderlust’ we’re back in the ‘What Did You Expect from The Vaccines?’ sound - a thoughtful, almost mysterious Western sound that builds up ahead of a chorus that is grand and undeniable. A softer and more reflective song follows in the form of ‘Paranormal Romance’, and continues with ‘El Paso’, the band's last single release. This sound later returns with ‘Heart Land’. As with all these songs, they are built up in such a way that we feel ourselves being dragged into this new work of The Vaccines.
Vocalist and chief songwriter Justin Young expands on the idea behind the album: “In some obvious ways we’re more connected than ever, but we’re also more polarised than we’ve been for 100 years and the world is getting colder. What if there was a place where love and other emotions had run dry - but you could go to Love City to get them?” He imagined The Vaccines as the house-band in Love City, a place where safety, solace and satisfaction are on offer as much as love, where mental and physical pleasure is for sale and where nobody has to be alone.
The Vaccines being one of the pioneers of catchy guitar pop and rock, we are getting exactly what we hoped. It’s something new, but it’s without a doubt the band we fell in awe with when they first released absolute bangers ‘Wetsuit’, ‘Norgaard’ and more recently ‘Your Love Is My Favourite Band’. ‘Jump Off The Top’ is another example of that, but dressed in a brand new leather jacket. ‘XCT’ is slightly different, and showcases a more in your face and poignant sound, a knockout track if you ask us.
Before the second knockout kicks in, we take a breath with ‘Bandit’, and despite it being a nice break, what we’re in need of is tracks like ‘Peoples Republic Of Desire’. It’s filled with energy, makes us want to dance and jump around and gives us the feeling of connectedness to the music. We can say the same for ‘Savage’, despite it being slightly less cutting. We end the album with a slow paced, grown up sound in ‘Pink Water Pistols’, the fans have been gifted an album that is unapologetically The Vaccines, without the band completely repeating itself. It’s what we had hoped for and a little bit more!
Words by Laura Rosierse