And it was a concept so deceptively simple that it was dumbfounding that no one had arrived at it before them: Young, a failed troubadour from BritainвЂ™s Mumford & Sons neo-folk movement, teamed up with the equally frustrated post-Strokes punk guitarist Freddie Cowan, and like that old вЂњYou got peanut butter in my chocolate!вЂќ/вЂњBut you got chocolate in my peanut butter!вЂќ ReeseвЂ™s commercial, the formerвЂ™s warm vocals and clever composing skills blended seamlessly with the latterвЂ™s buzzy, hornet-in-a-jar power chords, until the two actually seemed to converse with each other on every song, with the shapeshifting Cowan changing tones to complement every track differently. In these careening, less-polished takes of future hit singles like вЂњNorgaard,вЂќ вЂњIf You WannaвЂќ and вЂњPost Break Up Sex,вЂќ the energy is there, glaringly obvious, and sparking like a live third rail. Instead, they spent 2020 celebrating the 10th anniversary of What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? with a special demo version of the disc, which stands as a wonderfully scratchy, equally energetic template of their entire philosophy. вЂњSo we had always planned to wait a whole year to release it, so not much changed for us, other than that we ended up having to wait a lot longer.вЂќ вЂњSo we had a finished record when the pandemic hit, and the plan had always been to actually sit on it for a while and think about the creative side and think about the visuals, and how we wanted to create this world around it,вЂќ says Young. Singer/songwriter Justin Young and company (guitarist Freddie Cowan, keyboardist Tim Lanham-no relation-bassist Arni Arnason, drummer Yoann Intonti) had actually completed work on Back in Love City pre-lockdown, recording with keen-eared producer Daniel Ledinsky at the Sonic Ranch residential studio outside El Paso, Texas. And the more you heard about the worldwide search for vaccines in coronavirus news, the more you thought about the band itself-where were they? What were they up to? Had they seized the lockdown day and penned a slew of patently cynical, pun-peppered pop-punk anthems, a la their definitive 2011 debut What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? Or was something far creepier going on? A bit of both, it turns out. It seemed like an eternity since 2018вЂ™s Combat Sports had come out. And it may not cure everything that ails you, but it stands as a timely little reminder that great music-especially in a time of grave despair-can truly save your life. And just as the actual hypodermic jabs were ready, word leaked out that Back in Love City, The VaccinesвЂ™ stunning new fifth outing, was in the pipeline, too. But either way, it became obvious that both panaceas were sorely needed as 2020 wore on.

Appear on the pop-cultural radar before the actual Pfizer and Moderna anti-Covid shots are ready, and you look like gauche opportunists too late and youвЂ™re grasping at vanishing coattails.

Only Danny OвЂ™ReillyвЂ™s Celtic combo The Coronas might have had to face more hurdles in the public-sensitivity department. Naturally, if your chosen band moniker happens to be The Vaccines, timing is everything when youвЂ™re trying to schedule your latest album release during a dark, harrowing pandemic.

Noraagard the vaccines album