The Vapors - Wasp In A Jar (2025)

2025 release from the veteran British pop quartet. Wasp in a Jar is the 2025 album from The Vapors. With all songs written by the band over the previous year or so, the album was recorded and produced by Michael Giblin (The Split Squad) at Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania in September 2024 and mastered at Rare Form Mastering by Greg Reierson. Like all three previous Vapors releases, this album conveys an individual feeling of it's own, both lyrically and musically. The title derives from a line in the song 'Forever & Ever' but it also describes perfectly the high velocity, guitar and bass heavy punked up tempo that runs through a number of the songs whilst conjuring up an image of bottled-up anger that runs through a number of the album's lyrics. Dave Fenton's lyrics are as observational, poetic and open to interpretation as ever. If 'New Clear Days' (1980) mixed commentary about the mundanities of late '70s/early '80s life combined with the paranoia stirred up by the state of the world as it was back then, 'Magnets' (1981) brought a more personalised study and 'Together' (2020) a joyful celebration of the eventual reunion, then this album is a combination of all three. All of which are glued together here by current personal and global commentaries, all performed by a band full of ability, confidence and positivity and very clearly enjoying themselves, 45 years on from their recorded debut.