What Paul Simon is to Vampire Weekend, The Beatles are to The Young Veins. On their debut Take A Vacation! the band serves as a throwback machine that incessantly pumps out song after song of fun and catchy retro-pop in the same — well — vein of the music that made the Fab Four famous in the 60s.
The album as a whole is a reflection of lead man Ryan Ross’ change in pace in the last few years. Ross is best known for his roll in the baroque pop band Panic! At The Disco, but he and fellow member Jon Walker left the band in 2009 because of those “creative differences” artists tend to catch every now and then.
Since then, Ross and Walker moved from Panic!’s city of Las Vegas and settled down in what was once the fertile crescent of laid back ’60s pop, the California coast. Together they formed The Young Veins, and have been touring and recording ever since.
Ross and Walker are privileged musicians in that they’ve had plenty of experience in the music world, but they’ve still got a lot of life ahead of them. In the past five years they’ve been a part of a nationally acclaimed group, left that group for their own causes, and started their own group, which is now growing in their own direction. All this, and Ross has just turned 23 years old.
It’s not often that artists get to work with the benefits of both youthful exuberance and old-timer know-how. In fact, it would seem like that would be oxymoronic. But somehow, Take A Vacation! manages to be young and old, timeless in its own sense.
From the Ringo drum riffs on “Cape Town” to the wailing super poppy title track “Take A Vacation!” the Young Veins produce a genuine blend of all-’60s music. Combined with Ross’ Shinsesque vocals, the music appeals universally.
The downside to most albums like Take A Vacation! is that they tend to end up sounding like cover albums without covers that go on and on like an SNL sketch. But the Veins manage to avoid this over-homage. Songs like “Maybe I Will, Maybe I Won’t” may sound like they have Paul and George singing backup vocals, but there’s plenty of original material to make the band’s songs compelling.
On the song “Young Veins (Die Tonight)”, Ross poses the question “Is Young a word for dumb/ a word for fun?” But he answers himself with the album he’s helped make. Despite their age, the appropriately titled Young Veins have shown an astonishing amount of nostalgia with Take A Vacation!. Their hindsight has given us an album that’s both respectable and fun.
