It has been four years since The Vaccines' debut album What Did You Expect...
exploded into the public consciousness. There were those who sniffed and wondered if the West London combo were more than the sum of their undoubted influences, while others like me who adored their sharp, primitively jagged guitar pop anthems. Expectation levels were not helped by the gushing of Radio 1's Zane Lowe, who described the band as "a game changer". This, their third album, is downright confusing and frustrating; the sound of a band who appear conflicted over what direction to take. If What Did You Expect... was their carefree Definitely Maybe, English Graffiti is their bloated Be Here Now. The primitive, spiky stomp-rock of yore shows itself in just two places; consequently Handsome and Radio Bikini seem absurdly out of place. The biggest crime is the indulgently melancholic single Dream Lover, which is as saccharinely twee as the title would suggest and makes me crave the direct barbed but simple observations of, say, Post Break-Up Sex. "A hollow embrace," warbles Justin Young. A hollow Embrace, more like.
Martin Williams
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