Something in Vacation's “Candy Waves” triggered the words “Rock and Roll High School” to my brain, and not so much that the Cincinnati trio are biting into The Ramones legacy, but that I assume they have degrees from the school of rock.
There's the quote from Vacation's Peyton Copes, “Jerri writes pop songs and I fuck them up”, that shoots down inclinations to romanticize their station in punk. It began with good intentions, and somewhere in the process one dude said, “to hell with that”. The eponymous track could have been a cushioned pop punk tribute, just a little too safe, but Vacation fought with valliance and opened the sucker wide open with a bridge built to the glittery pastuers of glam. It's so clever, you hardly see it coming. You pause when that piano sneaks in beneath the heavy riffing and suddenly those oohs and ahhs from earlier serve a greater purpose.
Book'em at Shea Stadium now. Force a friendship with The So So Glos, but hope it comes naturally, and schedule a co-headlining U.S. tour on the platform that it's OK to totally, unabashedly embrace pop punk again.
Vacation's Candy Waves LP and self-titled LP are out June 18 on Don Giovanni.
