The Vines - 'Melodia' (Cooking Vinyl) Released 06/10/08

Since emerging as part of the guitar invasion of the early part of the decade, things haven’t gone exactly to plan for The Vines. Where contemporaries managed to hold on to and enhance the furore that surrounded them at this time and go on to develop their sound and fanbase, The Vines released two follow up albums to the highly regarded ‘High Evolved’, to increasingly unenthusiastic reactions.

Undoubtedly the band were hampered by lead singer Craig Nicholls’ being diagnosed as suffering from Aspergers Syndrome, as well as dogged by in band problems and rumours of a possible split. After a bit of a sabbatical, ‘Melodia’, their fourth album, goes closest yet to recapturing what made ‘Highly Evolved’ such an exciting album. But is the world still interested?

Stylistically, the band have not strayed from the formula that brought them to prominence, to the extent that this album could easily replace the second in the band’s back catalogue without anyone questioning the sudden development. This tactic is possibly a double edged sword. Where contemporaries such as The Strokes allowed their sound to evolve with following albums and kept the attention of the fans they gained, for instance, indie rock has moved on since The Vines emerged.

Musically, songs on the album tend to fall into one of two categories – occasional slower, acoustic and string-laden ballad style songs (‘True As The Night’, ‘A. S III’) which show an attempt to create something a bit different to the second variety – the fast paced, loud, riff based shout-alongs, like ‘Get Out’, ‘He’s a Rocker’, in fact the majority of the songs.

What can be said is that these songs come closest to matching the energy and freshness of their debut. Perhaps it’s a side effect of learning to live with his condition that has meant Craig Nicholls has had to learn a whole new way of working on music, which keeps it from sounding stale despite it being a scant departure from the first album all those years ago.

Ultimately, if you think Indie rock has gone off the rails since the guitar invasion of 2002, or possibly if the indie train passes you by but you are a fan of the 70s hard rock that inspires and fuels The Vines, this album would be a decent purchase. The landscape of indie music may be a little stale at the moment, but it has certainly changed since 2002 and this album is unlikely to spark another revolution, or win The Vines many new fans. For fans of band this is a good set of songs, but don’t expect anything much further evolved than their debut.