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by Keavin Wiggins
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These
rockers from Down Under prepare to invade the U.S. Music Scene.
A few weeks ago we ran a review of The
Vines debut CD, “Highly Evolved” (don’t worry if you missed it, I am including
most of it here). As I explained in that review we typically do not run
reviews several weeks before a CD is released but I had to make an exception
in this case. There were really two reasons for this. One; like I stated
in that review, “it’s sort of like being a kid who discovered something
really cool and you just have to tell everyone who will listen about it.
This CD is like that; it fires up my inner evangelist and makes me want
to preach the good news of The Vines from street corners. Yes, I am being
quite serious!”
The other reason was a bit more serious
and it appears that my fears have at least been partially justified. I
was afraid that once critics and the like got a good listen to The Vines
they would feel the way I did and start telling everyone they know about
them and thus start a barrage of hype. Here is how I explained it originally,
“The buzz about this group is about to hit critical mass and dare I say
the hype that is expected to blowup around them may turn some people off
before they even give the CD an honest listen. That would be a big mistake
and the people who jump to that premature conclusion would only be cheating
themselves.”
One other concern was that people would
link the band to the genre of music now being called “New Garage” (how
lame is that genre title?). People are already lumping The Vines in with
groups like The Strokes, The Hives and The White Stripes. Many times after
hearing only one song! That is a huge mistake since The Vines are anything
but a one trick pony and are one of those rare groups that don’t stick
to a set formula and instead offer a wide cross section of musical flavors.
Even if one song on the album doesn’t turn you on, there is a good chance
that another will. While I like the sound that bands like The White Stripes,
The Hives and The Strokes are producing compared to The Vines it is really
pretty limited. These groups have generated a lot of excitement and rave
reviews but none of them have taken the new “retro” style genre to the
mass public and translated that into major record sales. It may turn out
that The Strokes, The Hives and The White Stripes may have simply laid
the groundwork for The Vines to take the genre to the next level in popularity
and help kick a complacent music scene in the ass and get it moving again.
The reason The Vines can accomplish this while the others have failed is
because they honestly have more to offer musically.
Even if you don’t like The Strokes and
the other bands I mentioned, you may find one of the sides to the musical
personality of the The Vines appealing. . “‘It is like listening to all
your favourite bands at once,’ wrote Betty Clarke of the British supersite
Guardian Unlimited. Betty hit on one of the key appeals of The Vines with
that statement. As you progress through the sonic voyage of soaking in
the album, you catch glimpses of other musical greats ranging from The
Beatles to Pink Floyd to Nirvana to The Stooges to early Soul Asylum and
many others. “
But let me backtrack a little, and start
out by saying I was blown away the first time I heard the album and now
a few weeks later it still hasn’t lost its luster the way some CD’s wear
thin after hearing them a few dozen times. If anything my appreciation
of The Vines grows with each subsequent spin of the CD. So now my enthusiasm
is at an even higher level than it was when I wrote the original review.
And that enthusiasm is contagious! Within days of posting that review I
started getting emails from fans asking where they can hear previews of
the album. Knowing how much of a music cynic I am, my enthusiasm made an
impression on some of the other writers here at antiMUSIC and they began
asking for copies of the CD because they wanted to hear for themselves
what caused me to write such a glowing review.
Let me go on record now and tell you that
I hear literally hundreds of new CD’s each year and very few end up in
my personal CD collection. “Highly Evolved”, made the cut. I’ll even go
as far as to say that if we were to pick the best albums of 2002 right
now, this CD would be at the top of the list. With very few new bands offering
anything really inspiring, the original purpose of starting Rocknworld.com
and antiMUSIC.com sometimes gets lost. The goal in the beginning was to
expose great music to people regardless of whether it came from a major
label artist, indy band or the dudes pounding out music in the garage down
the street. With the barrage of mediocre releases this year, it was beginning
to look like we wouldn’t have that many albums to write about to fulfill
that goal. But rest assured, now that the year is half over, The Vines
have come along and helped save 2002 from being a total bummer musically.
If you want to know why and didn’t read
my original review of the CD, I’m including part of that review below to
explain why I feel The Vines deserve your attention!
From the first angst filled chords of the
lead off track and first single, “Highly Evolved”, The Vines captured my
full attention. The song has The Stooges meet Nirvana feel to it propelled
with an abundance of melodic hooks and overdriven guitars. Clockin in at
one minute and 34 seconds the song is over almost as soon as it begins,
which makes it a really compelling option to hit the rewind key on the
CD player to hear it one more time. But then the second song “Autumn Shade”
starts and you decide to wait on replaying the first song. “Autumn Shade”
shows a mellower side of the Vines and is the first introduction of the
Beatles meets modern alternative rock you will hear on the album. The song
actually sounds a lot like something one of my favorite unsigned bands
Twelvehourmary might play. But again the experience is short lived as the
song segways into the much heavier “Outtathaway” after only a couple of
minutes. Here the Vines pay homage to Iggy Pop once more but unlike a band
like the White Stripes, The Vines blend the Stooges influence with others
like Nirvana that really helps it become far more than a copy of the Stooges.
 “Sunshinin’”
comes across like an acid rock band that was suddenly transplanted into
1992 Seattle and transfixed by the grunge sound, incorporated it into their
style while maintaining their 60’s rock characteristics. The next
song “Homesick” a ballad that sounds like it would feel comfortable on
side two of The Beatles “Abbey Road” is a real highpoint of the album.
The Vines mix of melody, exceptionally delivered instrumentation and harmonies
on this song are just part of what makes this band so exciting to listen
to and dare I say it, really helps them stand head and shoulders above
just about any band on the rock scene at the moment.
“Get Free”, a full speed rocker takes elements
of early punk, grunge and 70’s era glam of the New York Dolls and gives
it a modern spin. It really comes on like something that Local H or early
Soul Asylum would write.
“Country Yard,” another slower song has
a psychedelic Beatles meets Radiohead groove to it that should appeal to
listeners both young and old. With “Factory” we see another side of the
group’s Beatles influence, a song that starts out as a look back at John
Lennon’s “Mr. Kite” from “Sgt Peppers”, the Lennon influence in the vocals
is uncanny. If it wasn’t for the heavier guitar driven interludes some
people might actually mistake this song for a long lost track from the
“Sgt. Peppers” sessions. The working class sentiments of the lyrics also
tie the song in with Lennon in spirit.
“In The Jungle” spans the decades as well
with heavy late 60’s undercurrent and modern alternative rock face that
makes it similar to the music of bands like The Posies but with a bit more
balls.
“Mary Jane” has a real trippy feel to it,
the vocals, bass and guitar sound unmistakably like “Dark Side of Moon”
era Pink Floyd, which is a really stunning achievement as not many bands
can pull off Pink Floyd’s style without sounding contrived. Every time
this song comes up, I have to hit repeat a couple of times, it’s that good!
“Ain’t No Room” is the most modern sounding
song on the album, the heavy guitars and vocals sound a bit like Nirvana
but it also mixes The Vines 60’s influences, so it stays in character with
their other songs. “1969” gets to the heart of the matter, a song where
the Vines unabashingly admit their deep love for the music of the late
60’s with lyrics like, “It’s 1969 in my head / I just want to have no place
to go / Living through the sound of the dead”. The sound is a clever mix
of the Beatles and Pink Floyd with a bridge that falls into Iggy Pop territory.
This is a really a love song written to an era of music that the band obviously
loves.
Unlike other bands that borrow from The
Beatles like Oasis, The Vines didn’t lift the sound from the Fab Four intact;
they take the best elements of many artists and recraft them into their
own sound. It may be 2002 but The Vines make you wish it were 1969 again.
For those of us who were too young to live through the real era of the
late 60’s, this is the next best thing.
It’s about time that music from a major
label stretches the boundaries of what is expected and voyages beyond the
pop-rock constraints of modern radio friendly music. The Vines are quite
simply one of the best new bands to hit the music scene in years. These
four guys from Australia have the makings of superstars and as James Dean
Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers recently said, The Vines are “'absolutely
fucking amazing.” Bloody well right!
US
Fans - Wanna See The Vines in Concert? They are holding a cool contest
on their website where you can win 2 tickets to one of their upcoming shows!
Click here to enter the contest!
The
Vines – Highly Evolved
Label: Capitol
Rating: 
Release Date: 7/16/02
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a friend about this article
Photos and Album Art Courtesy
of Capitol Records.
Copyright 2002
All Rights Reserved by Copyright
Holders
Keavin Wiggins is the Editor
and Publisher
of the iconoFAN Network.
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