The Vaccines Become XFM’s ‘New Music’ Winner

The Vaccines have been announced as the winner of XFM’s New Music Award. The award, which is given to the best debut album released by a British artist in the previous year, was given out last night (February 8) at Manchester’s HMV Ritz and was chosen by a panel of judges that included Muse drummer Dominic Howard, Editors’ frontman Tom Smith, Noah &The Whale singer Charlie Fink and former New Order bassist Peter Hook.

The band’s debut album ‘What Did You Expect From The Vaccines’ beat off competition from Beady Eye, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Miles Kane, Chapel Club, James Blake, Ben Howard, Ed Sheeran, Benjamin Francis Leftwich and Scroobius Pip to win the award.

The Vaccines recently confirmed that they would be recording their second album in March with producer Ethan Johns. Speaking recently about the band’s plans, frontman Justin Young said of how the band’s second album was shaping up:

“It’s mostly written and we’re going into the studio in Belgium in March to start recording so it’ll definitely be out this year, without a doubt. We’ve definitely got six songs written that we all want to be on the record. I think we’re in a good place with it and it’s quite exciting.”