The Young Veins - Take a Vacation!

Expect fun and catchy tunes in The Young Veins' debut album Take a Vacation!. With its throwback sound of the 60s and the simple - if nonetheless heartfelt - lyrics, The Young Veins have created an album that manages to embody summer with all its wildness and freedom. On the heels of 'summer' often follows 'vacation,' and with tracks like "Defiance," "Young Veins (Die Tonight)," and the eponymous "Take a Vacation!" listeners get to enjoy a riot of that sensation of letting go.

Take a Vacation! is a solid album from start to finish. Despite most of the songs clocking in under three minutes, there's no sense that the songs feel too short. Indeed, it's more preferable than having each song dragged out to meet today's expectations of a "decently-lengthed" song and weakening the album as a whole. The album managed to nicely showcase its 60s influences without being too derivative, which had been a worry when I'd first heard "Change" as a single. Even then, though, "Change" had been an earworm, and the rest of the album is testament that The Young Veins haven't been just borrowing classic riffs wholesale.

As for lyrics, it's a nice progression from Ryan Ross's (and Jon Walker's) previous writing endeavours of Pretty. Odd. There's less of the outright fantastic imagery that was prevalent in songs like "Northern Downpour" and "Behind the Sea" - much as I loved it in Pretty. Odd., it would have been too much for the kind of atmosphere Take a Vacation! was trying to project. Still, there were some really nice turns of phrase: "I swear this like a sailor/Love is not a favor/I find it's just a concept that we live inside" of first track "Change," for example. I think the only song that actually disappointed me lyrically was "The Other Girl," which I felt was inane. (Nor did the song's subject matter help - I loved the tune but the words just left me lifting an eyebrow and thinking, really? "Life is not a fairytale/They will send him straight to jail/Where he'll die and go to hell/With the other girl" especially didn't scan well, and the lyrics of the chorus were just boring.)

My favorite songs have been "Young Veins (Die Tonight)," "Heart of Mine," and "Defiance." Indeed, it was "Young Veins (Die Tonight)" that convinced me that I couldn't miss out on this album - back when there were only three tracks available to the public, to boot. "Heart of Mine" and "Defiance" stood out for especially poignant lyrics with equally beautiful sound.


Take a Vacation! tracklist:
1. Change
2. Take A Vacation!
3. Cape Town
4. Maybe I Will, Maybe I Won't
5. Young Veins (Die Tonight)
6. Everyone But You
7. The Other Girl
8. Dangerous Blues
9. Defiance
10. Lie To The Truth
11. Heart Of Mine
12. Nothing Matters But You (with Z Berg of The Like)*
13. Funnel Of Love*

*Bonus digital download