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| | Arts Calendar / February 11 / Concerts |
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 Infectious London-based indie rock outfit the Vaccines formed in the late 2000s around the talents of Justin Young (vocals, guitar), Árni Hjörvar (bass), Freddie Cowan (guitar), and Pete Robertson (drums). The quartet, which has drawn comparisons to everyone from Surfer Blood and the Drums to the Strokes and the Jesus and Mary Chain, released its debut single, "Post Break-Up Sex," on Columbia Records in February 2011, in anticipation of a full-length studio album later in the year. That debut, What Did You Expect from the Vaccines?, appeared in the U.K. that March, showing up on North American shores two months later. Released in 2012, Come of Age, the band's sophomore outing, was produced by Ethan Johns and recorded at ICP Studios in Brussels, Belgium and the Distillery in Bath, England. For their third studio album, the Vaccines opted for a change of pace: they traveled to America to record 2015's English Graffiti with producer Dave Fridmann (who previously worked with the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev), with experimental hip-hop producer Cole M. Greif-Neill also taking part in the sessions. English Graffiti appeared in late May 2015. In interviews, members of The Vaccines have said they're making music for the moment, with the understanding that it may well lose its luster within a few years or even months. In the case of the band's third full-length album, English Graffiti, that means jettisoning post-punk thrash in favor of a sturdier sound with which The Vaccines' members seem close and comfortable: Top 40 pop from the early to mid-'80s. With two albums of real rock under their belts, the Vaccines take a left turn toward trashiness on their third record English Graffiti. Back on their 2011 debut What Did You Expect from the Vaccines?, the bandmembers affected a studied detachment, a conscious decision to keep themselves at arm's length from either their hooks or their attitude. Four years later, they don't hesitate to embrace the tackier elements of being in a rock & roll band. English Graffiti spills over with fuzzed-out glam guitar and the neon glare of new wave synthesizers, all channeled through a post-punk filter pilfered from the Strokes. Where the Strokes remain concerned with indie cred even at this late date, the Vaccines are happy to settle for the surface, finding excitement in the basics of a big hook and an overly stylized surface. Such simple pleasures make English Graffiti an appealingly trashy little rock & roll record, one that does find room for the spaciness of the closing "Undercover" but is better understood by the walloping stomp of "Dream Lover" and the nervy cool of "Minimal Affection", an '80s homage containing no irony. These are candied sonic fantasias, passionate re-creations of the past with no reverence for history, and that divine, stubborn nostalgia fuels English Graffiti, turning it into the Vaccines' best record. More info
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