Last year’s departure of co-founder guitarist Freddie Cowan, following the 2016 exit of co-founding drummer Pete Robertson, doesn’t seem to have knocked the Vaccines off their stride. After five consecutive Top 5 albums, their sixth – featuring former touring guitarist Timothy Lanham – stays seamlessly true to the high-octane garage rock sound that has served them well. Opener Sometimes, I Swear is the sort of boisterously alienated anthem you can imagine being bellowed in the street. The likes of Lunar Eclipse, Sunkissed and The Dreamer offer more of the instantly catchy, effervescent pop songwriting the band patented on their first two albums, with big singable choruses (that occasionally follow quieter middle sections) arriving in wind tunnels of production sound.
