It was so easy to despise the Vines when they emerged like creatures from the garage lagoon with 2002's Highly Evolved. The Australian quartet was jammed down our throats ad nauseam. In Craig Nicholls, they had a nitwit, room-trashing poseur of a frontman, and the band unabashedly ransacked the Nirvana catalog -- when it wasn't dabbling in half-baked neopsychedelia. And yet, "Get Free" was a "get out of jail free" card. Feral hook, reckless verve -- it was the best two-minute, foreigners-do-grunge single since Blur's "Song 2." Alas, the boys have no such pass on their tepid follow-up, Winning Days. An obvious attempt to quell the critical voices suggesting that the Vines have limited range, substance and ideas, this overproduced album ultimately throws a wet blanket on any spark the band once possessed. "Ride" falls flat in its effort to mix British Invasion jangle with Sub Pop squall. The result is something Supergrass might relegate to a B-side. "Animal Machine" shamelessly apes "Get Free," but not even another rudimentary Bleach-era guitar solo can transform this lackadaisical dud into a winner. And the band's semi-acoustic, Beatlesesque flower-pop junkets ("Winning Days," "Rainfall") are impotent and instantly forgettable. Only the album's closer, "Fuck the World," shows a smidgen of life. But by then, it's too little and far too late.
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