Rocketing down a highway of broken dreams The Vaccines light up a nation’s collective disenchantment with rallying anthemics on their new album Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations. The U.K. indie rockers will also embark on a U.S. tour alongside The Kooks that kicks off next month, with stops at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles on March 21st and Fox Theatre in San Francisco on March 22nd.
Written in Los Angeles and recorded with producer Andrew Wells in the Hollywood Hills, Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations digs into the rapture of disillusionment. One that rather appropriately takes its title from a misremembered lyrical fragment of Don Mclean’s “American Pie” that ingrained itself in frontman Justin Young’s mind. Across ten sonically rousing tracks, the quartet drives its gleaming riffs through the very heart of languishing dreams, propelled in anxious ecstasy toward a diminishing horizon.
On the album’s opener “Sometimes, I Swear” they gather all that raucous emotion into a single galvanizing thrust toward frenetic escape. “You, you can’t keep your day job / And you, you can’t find your feet,” Young wails against a sprint of pummeling drums and screeching guitars. “Say your best work’s behind you / Still, you hate looking weak.” While the punchy howler “Heartbreak Kid” and jangly driver “Lunar Eclipse” reckon with the need to revitalize oneself after romantic love stalls.
Every grandiose sentiment that spills from the record is gilded by the band’s uplifting melodics. From the joyous lament that effuses out of “Primitive Man,” a song that wallows with euphoric grace over the pains of moving on and evolving as an individual, to the off-kilter jaunts of pop that tint the dreamy “Sunkissed.” Whether caught in the spiral of “Another Nightmare” or semi-hopeful “The Dreamer,” an emphatic urgency exerts its gravitational force on each song, pulling you faster and closer toward the cathartic release they offer.
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See The Vaccines at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles on Thursday, March 21st.
Visit The Vaccines on their website and Instagram to stay updated on new releases and tour announcements.
The Vaccines tour
Feb 29 – Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
Mar 1 – Asheville, NC @ Orange Peel
Mar 2 – Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
Mar 4 – Toronto, ON @ QET History
Mar 5 – Montreal, QB @ Mtelus
Mar 6 – Albany, NY @ Empire
Mar 8 – Boston, MA @ MGM Fenway
Mar 9 – Philadelphia, PA @ Fillmore
Mar 11 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5
Mar 12 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
Mar 13 – Washington DC @ Anthem
Mar 15 – Chicago, IL @ Riviera
Mar 16 – Minneapolis, MN @ Filmore
Mar 18 – Denver, CO @ The Fillmore
Mar 19 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Union
Mar 21 – Los Angeles, CA @ Palladium
Mar 22 – San Francisco, CA @ Fox Theatre
Listen to Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations the new album from The Vaccines below!
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