Energize

by Dave ThompsonTwenty-six years on and they still haven't found a new sound -- because they haven't needed to. The Vibrators long ago established themselves among the great impermeables of the British punk scene, timeless masters of the ballsy power pop riff machine that has spawned more fearless imitators than just about any other direction posited by the original new wave explosion. Energize is the Vibrators' 18th album, but it could just as easily be their eighth, or any other number you like. So no surprises, no shocks, and, for the confirmed Vibrators acolyte, no disappointments. Dividing its energies between the verging-on-metal roar that has marked their last few albums and the pure, melodic buzz saw that dates back to "Baby Baby" (the classic-in-the-making "So Far Down" is one of the band's best ever), then glancing down all the other little avenues that they've visited in the past, Energize's greatest virtue isn't the fact that it's glorious business as usual, but the implausibility of that business still being glorious. But a couple of choruses of the pounding "New Brain" are all you need to hear before Energize re-energizes all your old enthusiasm, and the Vibrators' vibrations are as powerful as ever. Here's to the next quarter-century.