by
The Vaccines
- Record Label: Columbia
- Release Date: May 31, 2011
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- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Jun 1, 2011The Vaccines do a good job of turning up the drama during their more restrained moments, resulting in a rare species: the well-rounded pop-jugular album.
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May 10, 2011Eagerly filling the recent vacuum of great U.K. guitar bands, this London foursome draws on the Jesus & Mary Chain tradition of sweet early '60s pop'n'roll married to sour punk noise.
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UncutApr 7, 2011Their true talent lies in creating songs replete with dreamy, late summer melancholy, shrouded in dusky reverb and topped off with Justin Young's oddly emotive quaver.[Apr 2011, p.84]
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Q MagazineApr 6, 2011Whether they can carry with them a rebirth of indie as characterized by debuts by Suede, The Strokes or Arctic Monkeys before them remains to be seen. But there's more than enough here to justify their talk-of-the-town status. [Apr 2011, p.96]
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MojoApr 6, 2011What Did You Expect is a breathlessly exciting debut, it's giddy raunch'n'revisionism hard to resist. [Apr 2011, p.100]
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Apr 1, 2011The Vaccines' debut does a wonderful thing--it reminds you that guitar music still works.
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Apr 1, 2011British rock desperately needs a big new act to capture the popular imagination. Though hyped in the music press and rising extra-fast, this London-based quartet lack the vision to fit that particular bill.
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Apr 1, 2011In all this album won't be world changing. The Vaccines are not "the saviours of British rock and roll" but What Did You... doesn't need to be. Instead it's inviting and well observed more than anything, a triumph typified by Post Break-Up Sex--a sublime sketch of that insensitively cute idiom, all guilt-ridden and relatable.
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Apr 1, 2011There's potential here--let's not entrust the future of rock to them just yet.
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May 31, 2011There's no shame in catchy, concise, sharply executed tunes that communicate mildly fresh takes on relationships, either -- and this album has more than a few.
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Apr 12, 2011The Vaccines are clenching onto rock and roll, and this album is an amicable chapter in the genre. Amicable.
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Apr 1, 2011The less they do big dumb bravado, it seems, the more there is to love about this London bunch.
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Apr 1, 2011The overriding impression left by What Did You Expect from the Vaccines? is of a first effort by a fairly good indie band boosted far out of their league by an overexcited music press.
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Jun 1, 2011It's style for miles and miles unencumbered by hooks and accentuated by an attitude that carefully practices disdain for its audience, so if you're not inclined to buy into their gait there's not much reason to stick around.
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May 5, 2011"Post Break-Up Sex" feels like the album's centerpiece, and is certainly its most complete track, playing like a compromise between the saccharine punk and the sullen balladry that often polarizes the collection of songs.
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Apr 1, 2011For the most part What Did You Expect From the Vaccines? fails to muster much sense of enthusiasm for itself beyond those first and last tracks.
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Apr 1, 2011Much of, if not all of What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? suffers from a complete lack of intelligence, candidness or originality: elements that help make guitar-based music interesting.
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Jun 6, 2011What Did You Expect has its moments, albeit brief ones.
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Apr 1, 2011Presumably not this unremittingly OK collection of hazy pop-rock singalongs paying anodyne homage to the Ramones, Jesus and Mary Chain and, er, Interpol.
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Apr 1, 2011Here, any trace of feedback or distortion has been eradicated to leave just a Fratelli-esque singalong punk-pop sheen to songs.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 54 out of 66
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Mixed: 11 out of 66
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Negative: 1 out of 66
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Jul 1, 2011
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May 3, 2011
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May 30, 2013