Artist: Younger Brother
Album: Vaccine Electronic
Label: Twisted
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Review:
[EDIT: Man, I was a brash and harsh punk for quite a while. I’m not going to erase my history and pretend I didn’t write what I wrote but I would like to make it less angsty and explain a few bits better…]
Getting to hear this album has to have been one of the longest, most pointless, journeys I’ve had to endure, but I’m so thankful that they finally pulled their heads out of asses and made this available to the public.
For those unaware, Younger Brother started out as a project between the esteemed Simon Posford (Hallucinogen, Shpongle) and Benji Vaughn (Prometheus, Prometheus Process, The Zap!). Their first album was a somewhat straightforward take on the various sounds of psychedelic trance. The second album is where the magic truly formed though.
On their 2007 album The Last Days of Gravity, Benji and Simon enlisted the help of Leftfield vocalist Ruu Campbell. The album used the vocals sparingly, mixed and folded into the luscious psychedelic swirl that was the Younger Brother soundscape. It was a breathtaking album and was going to lead towards one of two places: they were either going to amp up the vocals and become more of a real band (more Coldplay than Radiohead or Underworld) or they were gonna keep making an interesting blend of modern psychedelic Underworld meets Radiohead chill out pop dance music. [yeah yeah yeah, it’s a weak comparison but I was younger and had opinions I felt were important…]
[snip… here I complained like an entitled brat about an album that is actually okay (some of it is real fucking strong) but I was being extra hard on them because I REALLY WANTED to hear those electronic mixes I knew existed but were being kept away from me (and the world). In all honesty, the vocal version of Vaccine is good and there is some solid stuff on it. It plays best when you can choose to listen to the electronic version or the vocal versions. When I wrote this review, the vocal version had been out for so many years, and I was feeling so hopeless of ever getting to hear those electronic mixes, I was getting exhausted and had basically given up hope. In the future, maybe they would do us a solid and release the next album as a double album in one. Give us both in the single release, don’t make us wait four years for the other half…]
Four years after Vaccine, and eight years after what was first explored in Last Days of Gravity, the true followup, Vaccine Electronic has been released unto the world. And it is AMAZING.
It is so good.
Lush, weaving soundscapes. Warm melodies, soft vocals being carefully manipulated by true masters of their craft. It’s just enough to tell you the story and take you on the journey without getting you lost in exposition. Show it, don’t say it. Paint the story with a variety of elements.
Vaccine Electronic is the Younger Brother album I’ve been waiting for since 2007 and I hope that they release a follow up to it soon. And not the vocal version of it either. Please continue following on the path of Last Days of Gravity and Vaccine Electronic and release more experimental, psychedelic, mixed tempo, pop music for a new era… or at least release both simultaneously!
Thank you for finally giving us what we wanted.
Thank you for listening to the fans.
Please don’t take so long next time
(and honestly, don’t listen to any of us. YOU always know what you’re doing and sometimes it is the audience that needs to be pushed forward in life…)
xoxox
-Genghis Goa Constrictor