So, what did we expect from The Vaccines follow up record? Well, if previous form is anything to go by, probably another platinum selling, Brit award nominated album that will garner the mixed blessing that is positive endorsement from the NME. Is that what has been produced with their second effort, Come Of Age?
Well, in most parts, no. The NME, in true NME tradition will probably still love it, or at least say they do, just because they usually play it safe like that. But for the rest of us, who actually listen to albums with a level head, this release comes as a major disappointment. There’s just nothing to it; no real stand out tracks, but nothing offensive either, just a very obvious lack of oomph. Unlike Holden Caulfield, whose coming of age took him through a fascinating journey of self-realisation, The Vaccines’ coming of age has stripped them of any of their, apparently short lived, youthful abandon. However, it should be mentioned that the album is fairly classily produced, and that, in keeping with the style of their debut, the tracks all sound ostensibly ‘good’.
But the plaudits are held back as the band fail to offer anywhere near as much excitement as they did last year; they have neither progressed, nor managed to reproduce the quality of tracks that were on What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? It’s all a crying shame really, because Maddie Russell’s brilliant article on their recent stripped back EP, Please Please Do Not Disturb, suggested greater things were to come. That said, she also wrote that their acoustic efforts were “Unrecognisable as The Vaccines. In a good way.” And that probably says a great deal more than I could in far fewer words.
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By Alex Throssell
Dance Yrself Clean
