What Did You Expect From The Vaccines review: Pure pop-rock fun

As the days get colder and the nights draw in, it’s sometimes nice to take your mind of the chilly outdoors with simple, happy music. And that’s why we need more bands like The Vaccines, whose debut album What Did You Expect From The Vaccines is not only jolly enough to thaw a snow covered football pitch but is also musically excellent. With strong beats and fuzzy power chords, this is as good an album as any for a cold, wet winter.


Clocking in at just over half an hour long, What Did You Expect From The Vaccines is a short album full of short songs. It’s therefore remarkable that most of it is extremely memorable, largely due to the band’s tremendous overreliance on colossal choruses. Indeed, the album’s most summery and simple song Nørgaarad repeats its “her mind’s made up she don’t wanna go steady/she’s only seventeen so she’s probably not ready” leading line four times in its 100 seconds, making use of just 3 chords in the process!

The Vaccines create a brash, unapologetic sound with Árni Árnason’s prominent bass lines merging with Pete Robertson’s powerful drumming, which helps to keep most of the songs so simple and joyful.  Justin Hayward-Young’s vocals are another matter however, as he regularly creates a darker undercurrent to songs like Post-Breakup Sex with murky lyrics and singing which sounds a little quieter in the mix than you would expect.

However, the album is best defined by songs like If You Wanna; short, sweet and featuring an undeniably overmilked chorus. It’s not complex, inventive or even particularly original, but it is great fun, and sometimes that’s all that’s needed.

6/10