The Vines, Highly Evolved

By James Keller

I guess The Vines named their latest album Highly Evolved to pay homage to the idea of “rock revival,” a style of music they no doubt tried to emulate when writing the 12 primitive songs that fill the album.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the genre, or even with some of the songs The Vines have pulled together. Songs like "Mary Jane" show a definite affinity for melody and chorus-verse-chorus songwriting, certainly a safe bet when breaking into any scene. What The Vines lack, however, isthe ability to take risks with their music. They don’t try to separate themselves from the new wave of rock revival flooding record stores. In short, nothing is being revived–just replayed and redone. To revive something, you need to improve, build and show some originality. While The Vines do what they do with competency (and make some decent music in the process), what it is they do is nothing special.

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