Come Of Age

It's a refreshingly swift follow-up from the hyped London quartet.

And that's as it should be – after all, The Vaccines made a name for themselves with short sharp shocks like Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra) and Post Break-Up Sex on 2011 album What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? so they may as well stay in character.

Another wittily phrased title, Come Of Age actually signals only the slightest progression in that Vaccines sound. Essentially, the songs are longer. No magnum epics – the five-and-a-half minute plod of Lonely World is as close as we get here – but there's extra breathing space amid the punky blasts and it lets singer Justin Young get his thoughts out there.

Understandably for the frontman of a band who found themselves plastered all over the music press with barely a note under their belt, Young's preoccupied with this fame thing. "If you want the voice of a generation… I'm too self-obsessed to give it clout," he sighs on Libertinesy single No Hope. "I'm no Frankie Avalon… I'm nobody's hero," he emphasises on the pogoing Teenage Icon.

He probably isn't the right man for the job then, but Young has character and The Vaccines aren't the mere post-punk copyists they might've seemed first time around. A nice line in rock'n'roll twang on I Always Knew and Weirdo reveals a dextrous band that could develop well, given room.

Album review by Matthew Horton