The Vaccines - I Can’t Quit

It’s been three long years since The Vaccines released any new music – practically a lifetime for the London outfit who pumped out two no-nonsense LPs within their first two years of forming back at the start of the decade. Since 2015’s ‘English Graffiti’, the band have lost one original member (drummer Pete Robertson), gained two more (keyboardist Tim Lanham and new sticksman Ioann Intonti) and spent their longest time out of the spotlight since they first crash landed in a blur of short’n’sharp riffs and songs about inadvisable shagging. It’s a relief, then, that the band’s first moves back don’t so much tentatively peek round the door as fling it open with gusto. Filled with the kind of simple yet massive hooks that turned early tracks ‘Wetsuit’ and ‘Blow It Up’ into such effortless arena fillers, Justin Young’s lyrical barbs are about everything and nothing – a series of throwaway rhyming nihilisms with a chorus made for bellowing at the top of your lungs. As always with the singer, it’s a lot smarter than it probably seems on the surface. When The Vaccines announced their return at the tail end of 2017, they did it by whacking a 10,000-capacity comeback show straight on sale. Ballsy, yes. But by the sounds of it, the band are returning with the chutzpah to back it up.