Vacation band 2024
Vacation by Jamie Morrison

Vacation announce new LP 'Rare Earth,' touring (stream the title track)

Cincinnati punks Vacation have announced a new album, Rare Earth, due May 3 via local label Feel It Records, following releases on Salinas and Don Giovanni. It was produced and mixed by the band and Sam Richardson, and it comes with this description written by their friend Amos Pitsch of Tenement and Dusk:

Vacation’s new album Rare Earth comes at a time when the powder keg of civilization as we know it is particularly vulnerable to the spark that swallows our very existence. Rare Earth is an album that exists on account of this fact; lyrically and sonically in meditation of it. It’s an album that evokes at once the ominous churning of the Bizarros, the drone & dirge of Screaming Urge, and the melodic cushion of the Replacements’ tender years. Nine albums into their discography, Vacation remain true to shrill atmospheric ambience in tribute to Pere Ubu while retaining the hard-edged accessibility that was signed, sealed, and delivered to sensitive degenerates by the likes of the Ramones and Guided By Voices. Rare Earth delivers all of this in a uniquely sparkling package; almost tactile in relation to their live experience. It’s this Cincinnati power-quartet’s most explosive album yet.

The first single is the title track, and it’s a real ripper that lives up to the promise of all those name-drops and descriptors in Amos’ blurb. Singer/guitarist Jerome Westerkamp has this to say:

“Rare Earth” is a rock song for a dying planet. Yes, I know it’s also the name of a rock band from the 70’s. Let It Be, enough said. I heard an interview with Carl Sagan where he referred to “rare earth theory” as the uniqueness of habitable planets. It drove home the fact of how special our rock really is. I thought that fit the theme of our album quite nicely and worked in “Rare Earth” as the title track. It’s a commentary on modern humanity as seen through blue collar eyes. People to one side caught up in “branding” themselves as something to sell – and those on the other side, so lost in drowning out and rapidly reproducing. It seems we’ve forgotten the big beautiful garden we must call home.

Check the new song out below and pre-order the album here.

Vacation also have tour dates coming up in April, including a Brooklyn show on April 27 at Our Wicked Lady. All dates are listed below.

Vacation Rare Earth

Tracklist
1. Worlds in Motion
2. Rare Earth
3. Kink
4. I Was a New York Ranger
5. Big Hat World
6. Cheap Death Rattle
7. Life Beyond Enceladus
8. Mobility
9. Psychic Gasoline
10. Sanity’s Sake
11. Tectonic Rider
12. Sailing

Vacation — 2024 Tour Dates
4/10 – Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village *
4/11 – Green Bay, WI @ At The Tracks *
4/12 – Madison, WI @ Mickey’s Tavern *
4/13 – Milwaukee, WI @ Promises *
4/25 – Pittsburgh, PA @ The Government Center
4/26 – Philadelphia, PA @ Ukie Club
4/27 – Brooklyn, NY @ Our Wicked Lady
4/28 – Buffalo, NY @ Amy’s Place

* w/ Dana