Back with a bang!
Remember The Vines?
No not the things where you get wine from, but the once everywhere Indy rockers from the other side of the world, fronted by Craig Nicholls...yep I'd forgotten about them too.
It seemed for a while that this band could do know wrong. Their debut 'Highly Evolved' launched them on to the world's music scene with considerable acclaim. 2004's 'Winning Days', however it is fair to say was met with mixed reviews. They had the public humiliation of falling apart at a massive show in Australia, and Craig's Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis certainly put the band on the back foot for a while. Clearly they're refocused and ready for action once again, with all that they have been through meaning that the success of this record is vitally important if they are to re-assert themselves in the place they seemed destined to stay in for many years.
Maybe the pressure was really on and they rise to that kind of challenge, or they went into the studio with the "nobody gives us a chance anymore and we've nothing to loose" attitude. Whatever it was that motivated them during the recording process, they've returned with their strongest work to date.
'Vision Valley' is the usual combination of grunge meets hives, short, sharp, aggressive rock, mixed in with some top-notch melodic moments, which makes this a well-balanced and interesting collection of songs.
From the opening rift of 'Anysound' it's clear they're back and really mean it. The album continues at a similar pace with 'Nothin's Comin' and 'Candy Daze', with the first of the slower numbers arriving in the shape of the excellent title track 'Vision Valley'. Another highpoint is the fifth song, there is a bit of an eighties pop feel to the verses of 'Don't Listen To The Radio', but the chorus' return to the aggressive nature of earlier tracks.
'Gross Out' was the first single, and really shows this band have the fight and desire to be taken seriously again. It clocks in at less than two minutes, and launches itself at you at such a pace that you are forced to pause for breath at the end. 'Take Me Back' and 'Going Home' are perfect for that, the former is a much stronger song than the latter as there is more of a memorable hook line to it. 'Going Home' struggles to hang around long in your brain once it has finished.
The standard of the songs does drop as the record nears its conclusion, 'Futuretarded' is the pick of the bunch. That is until we reach the album's climax.
The common theme running throughout 'Vision Valley' is that the songs are very short. 'Spaceship' is the closest the Vines will come to creating an epic as it's almost three times as long as anything else on offer. It's more Doves than Hives as it dreams and undulates its way through its just over six minutes and makes for the perfect album close.
If you'd written the Vines off as one of those bands who show a lot of promise, get much of the music press extremely over excited on the strength of not an awful lot, then fall apart before your very eyes then firstly you've summed up their career thus far perfectly. Now forget about the fact that you had written them off and give this album a few listens, it might not do it for you at first but trust me this is one which deserves a place in your music collection.