Vines

The media have always had a field day with the Vines, touting them either as grunge throwbacks or the saviours of modern rock. All this pointless rhetoric overshadows the fact that they've always made their style of solid, brilliantly simple music with dirty guitars and an attitude to match. And the songs on Melodia are no different. However, it does seem like the album from a band that's moving on musically but are afraid to disappoint their fans and critics. None of the songs have the bare ferocity of "Outtatheway" and on "He's A Rocker," Nicholls inexplicably sounds like Jason Stollsteimer. The band keep up the perpetual Nirvana comparison by making "Orange Amber" a grimy pop tune with bizarre lyrics, but having filled their fan-pleasing track quota with these songs, a new maturity finds its way into the record. "True As The Night" is touchingly honest and showcases exactly where the band would be if they weren't held back by their reputation.