What Did You Expect From the Vaccines?

Photo Courtesy of Julio Enriquez’s photostream on Flickr.com. The Vaccines will cure your rock and roll disease.The Ramones are great in theory, but I never actually want to listen to their music. I love the spirit of their conscious decision to limit their songs to three chords, and the breakneck speed at which they play music. But when you’re actually sitting on the metro with headphones in your ears, a little variety is nice. A common criticism of modern guitar-based music is that “all the songs sound the same.” With The Ramones, all the songs are the same.

I love The Vaccines’s album, What Did You Expect From the Vaccines? It blends the spirit of The Ramones with some honest songwriting. While most of the album is decidedly uptempo (eight of twelve songs clock in under three minutes, fou of them under 2:30), the best song is the 3:50 ballad “Wetsuit.” Either abstract or nonsensical (it’s like most Shins songs; is James Mercer a genius or just consistently lucky? I’m really not sure), “Wetsuit” is a strange but excellent song, highlighted by a fantastic, understated vocal performance from frontman Justin Young. The fact that the band can do so much with so simple a song (it’s just single strum guitar chords and a quarter note tonic bass line) is a true testament to their genius and their potential.

In contrast, the next-best song is Norgaard; 1:38 about an attractive seventeen-year-old girl. As wrong as it is, I can never muster enough righteous rage about immoral rock songs. Somehow, conduct that would be genuinely creepy in almost any setting seems like harmless fun when it’s set to music. If you actually did the things suggested in “Every Breath You Take,” you’d be arrested. If you sing it to your girlfriend, it’s suddenly romantic (well, maybe not. It’s probably still creepy. Bad example).

The rest of the album nicely straddles the middle ground between the two standouts. It’s a fantastic sign for their future that they are capable of greatness at both ends of their spectrum, and of real quality in the middle. “If You Wanna” and “Wolf-Pack” are prime examples of their uptempo style songs, while “All In White” gets the runner up trophy in the album’s best-ballad contest.