The Vines - Highly Evolved Review
Posted by Vanderhorst on 08.27.2002
Somebody needs to make up a name for this new sound, as it’s clearly the future of rock and roll, even if they did get their start at a McDonald’s. How about grungepunk? Grunk? GRUT!
Intro: Whoo, 411 has a new section. We’re one step closer to becoming the best damn site out there... you just watch, in five years 411 will be THE big site and barely anyone will remember that it started out as a wrestling page. So why not start out the future of this website with the future of popular music?
The Lowdown: Alright, I haven’t heard this disc before so I’ll go through song-by-song.
The disc opens up with the title track, and if you can’t figure that out yourself, I’ll slap you. VERY short track, but a fitting opener to the rest of the album, giving a satisfactory preview of the sound in the music, a mix of the sounds produced by the White Stripes, The Hives and The Strokes with a little bit of Nirvana and Beatles sensisiblities thrown in.
The second track, “Autumn Shade,” is the kind of slow grazing guitar you’d expect from a somberly named track. The majority of the song is cooing behind the instrumentals, and another very short track.
Skip ahead to “Outtathaway,” a head-boppin’ song that KICKS ASS. I smell single material here. Iknow this review is lackluster, give me some time. The song keeps crunching along, and is basically a message to the power ballad rockers out there that their turf is about to be invaded by the next big thing, so get out of the damn way. At 3 minutes, the longest track so far.
“Sunshinin” is the next track, and keeps the bopping beats alive with some excellent guitar and almost cheery lyrics... well, as cheery as these guys are going to get. This album is really picking up after the slow openig tracks.
“Homesick” sounds as much like the Beatles as anything I’ve heard, including Oasis, who have also influenced this record greatly. The piano directs the pace in the background and fits in nicely, and I’m not a fan of the sound a piano makes so that’s high praise, from me. The paino segues away and a dual guitar harmony takes us into the next track...
Which happens to be the debut single, “Get Free.” This tune gets massive radio play, so I trust you’ve already got yourself an opinion of it. It was my Song of the Week last week, so you know that I love this song, from the screeching lyrics to the message of freeing yourself from the binds of the normal world, as well as lamenting lost love.
“Country Yard” is another slower track, and despites the tempo hopping around the album as it does, it all seems to fit without assaulting the ears, which is good. This track seems to ditch the grunge-punk alchemy for more of Stereophonics-style British slow rock song.
The loping guitar twanging of “Factory” certainly wakes the listener up after the last track, with a Fab Four intro that gives way to an awesome crunching chorus, and then back to the lope. This is one damn neat tune.
“In the Jungle” has another cool opening that gets heads loping, although the song quickly slows down into a ‘70s style drug opus, then hops right into grungepunk. A fun tune, more experimental than anything.
“Mary Jane” is the tenth track, another slow track in which the marijuana synonym is sung 19 times. The guitars are cool and all, but of all tracks on the CD, this has the highest propensity for becoming annoying. A note... as the album goes on, each track becomes longer than the last.
“Ain’t No Room” returns us to the fun quick loping beats and lyrics that make grungepunk so appealing. The song lopes by so quick you’ll just be wishing it was still there.
“1969” ends the album fittingly, as that time period is an obvious favorite for this promising group. The Song is another slower tune, but instead of mixing it up with a piano they feature more of those wonderful guitar lines. The slow tune accelerates into dueling guitars and electric screams, which fade down into a bassline and ghostly screams before the song resumes. Masterful. Crazy, yet fitting, way to end the album out.
The Bonuses: No hidden tracks, nothing in the way of multimedia bonuses.
