New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Fresh from A List rotation at BBC
Radio 2, The
Vamps release another storming single from their upcoming album Cherry Blossom, the amazing "
Better" out today. "
Better" is a propulsive, electro-tinged pop song about not settling for second best, written by lead singer Brad Simpson with Svante Halldin, Jakob Hazell and
Peter Rycroft.
Brad explains: "Better is a song set in the context of a relationship, about not settling for less than you feel you deserve. Falling out of love but not forgetting the reason you fell into it and working hard to get back there. It has a wider meaning though, the main lyric being "I won't settle for less than best" is a mantra that can be applied to anyone at any point in their life, whether it is in a relationship or whether it's fulfilling your personal potential, you should always be striving to be and do the best you can.
The track leans to a bit more 80's in the production, but keeps the dirtier drum and guitar sounds that we have across the whole album. It's so exciting for us to be showing more and more of what Cherry Blossom explores sonically and thematically, this is a band favourite off the album."
In July of this year The
Vamps returned to the music scene with the single "Married In Vegas," A listed at BBC
Radio 2 and a 'Record of the Week' for Matt & Mollie on BBC
Radio 1. The track heralded a new era for the band, 'the rebirth of The Vamps'. Brad, Connor, Tristan and
James have written their most personal and fully-formed album to date in Cherry Blossom.
The
Vamps had never really had the chance to be bored before 2020 struck. Since their platinum-selling debut album, Meet The Vamps, crashed into the UK charts at number 2 in 2014, the band have been holding onto a dream-like rush of albums (four in total, including 2017's chart-topping Night & Day (Night Edition), featuring the Matoma-assisted global smash "
All Night"), singles (eight top 40 hits including five top 10s), and world tours (they're the first band to headline London's O2
Arena five years in a row).
Having been on the treadmill of album, tour, album-recorded-on-tour, another tour, they fell back into the old routine and wrote half an album quickly 18 months ago. Some proper time off was needed however, so they indulged in that rare thing of space away from the band. Then, last summer, unhappy with the results of those early sessions, they booked some AirBnbs and just hung out and started jamming as the band. "We ended scrapping all of the first batch of songs and starting again," McVey says. This time gave the band the space to meticulously plan exactly what they wanted the album to be and what they wanted to say. Cherry Blossom was born, a title that is a reflection of the theme of rebirth that runs throughout.
In the space of just six years The
Vamps have morphed from bright-eyed and bushy-tailed boyband with instruments into a proper fully fledged pop band crafting arena-sized Hits. On Cherry Blossom, that musicality that's occasionally been lost in frantic release schedules and world tours and award shows has been given the time to properly, well, blossom. This isn't a vehicle for pop's current crop of in demand songwriters and producers, this is a Vamps-lead project that's made all the more impressive by the fact it was honed and finessed during lockdown. "We'd be lying if we said we didn't want it to go out into the world and be received positively," says Simpson of their hopes for the album. "But ultimately we love it so much, and that feeling of self-fulfillment is so exciting. These are songs that really touch on parts of our lives." He smiles. "The songs mean that little bit more."
