The Vines - Melodia

The songs on Melodia focus not so much on melody as on recapturing the original Vines sounds from the first album, Highly Evolved. Clever producer Rob Schnapff has been invited back to work with the boys again. You can hear in the album the determination of the band, of Schnapff and of the record company to make an album that will sell to those teens that are so clearly needed to make up record sales in a day of digital downloads.

Get Out, the first song on the album, is indicative of the whole of the CD. The raw energy of the boys comes up lacklustre; covered by clever production work from Schnapff that sees reverb and distortion make the song an attempt at a true ‘rock out’. Closely followed by the slow Manger and Autumn Shade III, the listener again sees the repeated attempts to channel hits from their first album. The harmonies that Craig Nicholls is so known for – where choruses are sung with a harmonic third above for one line and third below for the second line – is a distinct Vines catch as has been employed in many of these slower songs.

Although copycatting, this seems to work on one of the few genuine songs on the album, True As the Night, where the band laments their love for their “baby girl” partner. Here the band has decided to stop trying so hard and simply relax into the raw emotion that captures teen feelings so well. Indeed, young rockers will enjoy Hey, a slower ballad of existential angst. It captures the simplicity of the band’s lyrics: “You say you want a reason, I offer none to you.”

Speaking of rockers, one of the most abysmal songs on the album is in this vein. He’s A Rocker suffers from indie pretension, over production, lack of energy and a basic failure to not sound like total wankers. “All he ever wanted was a rock’n’roll band, man”?! Sorry guys, but being world famous and having worked with The Strokes, this one is just a little too self-reflexive for me.

Kara Jayne, like TATN, uses the harmonies made famous in Beatles-style songs such as Mary Jane and 1969 to capture a lovely melancholy seen in other originals such as Homesick, but with a more positive slant. Indeed, Craig has been quoted as saying how happy he is to be back on stage, and it is reflected in the lovely slow songs of the album. The only real stand out from the rock-out pieces is the instrumental Jamola, where Schnapff has final backed off the bloody production controls. This may have something to do with the raw masculinity that the boys obviously threw themselves into when they were recording this song. It earns them the ‘Nirvana’ allusion of that well-known Beatles/Nirvana comparison made seven whole years ago.

Overall the album suffers from a little too much self-reflexivity, a desire to hark back to the past and way too much over-production. The perils of the postmodern technological age are shown off perfectly in this album. That being said, Jamola is an interesting new step for the band, as is the second movement that follows the first structure of TATN.

Call me a sap but those slower numbers are simply lovely to listen to, at least for the romantic-at-heart listener. The typical AB/AB/Bridge/AB structure of the Vines is overcome only in certain numbers. Songs such as Scream are pure album fill that would have been best left on the cutting floor. The story of The Vines’s struggle is still fucking inspiring for those with Aspergers Syndrome and surrounding family members and friends. Unfortunately, though, when reviewing the CD as it stands alone, one is left wanting. A tighter album with less fill and less production may have been a wiser move.