Vaccine

Fans and casual followers of Simon Posford, guitarist to Younger Brother who is perhaps better known (although still criminally unheralded) for sowing the seeds of psychedelic trance music between his fantastic work with Raja Ram in Shpongle and his solo output as Hallucinogen, will either be left rejoicing or in dismay as he and Younger Brother press further on along the road they started down with their second LP, The Last Days of Gravity, whose straightforward rock arrangements and linear verse/chorus/verse songwriting were a far cry from anything in Posford’s wild, positively psychotropic back catalog.

With old members Benji Vaughan and Ruu Campbell on synths and vocals, respectively, and new arrivals Tom Hamilton, Marc Brownstein, and Joe Russo, Younger Brother tinker around with a variety of sounds and rhythms with a newfound reliance on their virtuosity and cohesion as a band; this holds especially true for the incredibly talented Russo, who drums full-time in noted jam band supergroup Furthur. Too often, Vaccine is overly intent on bouncing between genres and styles, presumably in an attempt at idiosyncrasy that instead ends up evoking what I’d imagine a Coldplay studio session the morning after their first rave would sound like in the stadium-sized choruses of “Shine” and future single “Night, Lead Me Astray”.

Younger Brother reprise their roles as DJs for two atmospheric trance tracks, “Sys 700” and “Tetris”, that close out the album in intriguing fashion, offering an introspective flipside to a mostly forgettable album and prospects of better things next time around.