You may remember The Vapors from the 1980s with their big hit 'Turning Japanese' (and if you didn't realise who that song was by, now you know!). Having reformed in 2020 with their album 'Together', The Vapors are returning in style for 2025 with original frontman Dave Fenton and bassist Steve Smith, now joined by Fenton’s son Dan on lead guitar and Michael Bowes on drums, and they really haven't erred far from their original style. Every song on this album is full of relentless repetitive hooks that get you humming along without even realising. Beginning with the lead single, Hit the Ground Running, you know it's off to a good start (nice word play there, very clever - well you certainly lured me in!). This follows with earworm after earworm after earworm. I listened through twice in one day and fell asleep, then subsequently woke up, with them running round my head. The lyrical content skirts at times around the pandemic and lockdown - a really strange period of conformity when we think back to it, and a cause of simmering anger that seems to be constantly bubbling just below the surface of society. 'We'll all be together again - but we don't know where, and we don't know when' (Together Again); 'well they're locking down fast and they're locking down slow, it's lockdown wherever you go' (Idiot Creature); 'carry on, carry on as if nothing happened' (Carry On). It seems that the album title, Wasp in a Jar, refers to the way we were all so confined during that time, wound up and then let loose again. What is life like now? Did things change for you? Well it did for The Vapors, clearly. You can tell that the band have done this before because it's just so tight, so meticulously written and well produced. Bit sickeningly brilliant, really. The Vapors will be leaving the sunny/rainy climes of Worthing to head off on tour later this year - not only in the UK but also the US. More details on their website at www.thevapors.co.uk.