You’ve heard this song before.
You’ve heard this album before.
You’ve seen this band live before, but it’s been so long – do you really care anymore?

The Vaccines are a UK band who, in the UK music press (read: NME) have been hailed as the new brit-pop darlings you must worship and adore lest you face the harsh ridicule of anyone claiming to be cooler than you.

Anglophiles both casual and fanatical will agree on this to a certain degree.
Anglophillia or the severe interest/obsession with UK bands (or as a Greek goddess once put it “lad rock”) has been going in and out of style since the very first British Invasion. For every Guided By Voices geek, there’s a Manic Street Preachers nutter just like there’s a Strokes devotee for every Libertines junkie.

Some years are better for anglophiles than others. American Indie Rock has been kicking serious limey ass for a while now that the British Hype Machine hasn’t successfully reached our radars since Tony Blair left office and Arctic Monkeys were still culturally viable.
Enter The Vaccines, a really young London foursome with a scrappy pub rock yet anthemic retro pop sound.

The Vaccine’s singer, Justin Young, has a strong, clear and distinctive yet still familiar voice (you might recall and compare to Doves, Embrace, Kaiser Chiefs, etc).
Most of their debut, What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? is comprised of short one-two-punch numbers that concentrate more on the release and less on the build. It’s the aural equivalent of several satisfying quickies ( If You Wanna, Blow It Up, Post Break-Up Sex, Norgaard) and at least one incident of premature ejaculation (Wreckin’ Bar).  Like I said, they’re still young.

The Vaccines found their man with the megaphone in Zane Lowe, who is no Tony Wilson by any stretch, but he is a BBC radio dj. Add to this, Tom Cowan of The Horrors is your older brother (Freddie, guitar) and multiply that by the fact that it’s one of the driest times in British music history for guitar bands and you start to see the stars align for The Vaccines.

Don’t get me wrong, What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? is a fun album but it’s upsetting that the band with the The Horrors connection gets this much attention for doing the same thing that virtually every other band both in the UK and here stateside is doing, which is playing tried and true bar band/pub garage rock with  pop sensibility (See: Airborne Toxic Event, Gaslight Anthem, Detroit Cobras, etc) and some might argue, much better.