Heather Phares (All Music Guide)

They may be hyped by the British press as no less than the second coming of Nirvana, but on Highly Evolved the Vines offer something more interesting than yet another trawl through flannel-clad angst. True, the addictively short "Highly Evolved"'s primal beat and chunky guitars are certainly post-grunge, but not not in the boringly earnest, imitative way that bands such as Silverchair were — the song's sludgy sexiness and tight structure also recall the '60s garage punk that shaped bands like Nirvana and Mudhoney. But instead of just capitalizing on that one (admittedly great) sound, on the rest of the album the Vines prove that their style is indeed a highly evolved hybrid of grungy, garage rock swagger, '60s psych, and '70s pop. "Sunshinin'" throws a Krautrock-tinged bass line into the mix for good measure, while the irresistible "Factory" sounds like Elton John and Supergrass collaborating on a response to "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da." Likewise, their ballads mix their reverence for the past with their own youthful enthusiasm. With its tinkling pianos and sweet, close harmonies, "Homesick" is a fresh update on the AM radio sounds of Gilbert O' Sullivan; the gorgeous, guitar-driven "Autumn Shade" and "Country Yard" share deep roots in British pop. Unlike many other pop postmodernists, the Vines never sound weighed down by all the influences they include in their music — it's as if they're so excited by everything they hear, they can't help but recombine it in unique ways. In fact, "Highly Evolved"'s relatively weak moments occur when the Vines aren't doing as much musical juggling: Straightforward rockers like "1969" and "In the Jungle" are certainly driving, but aren't as distinctive as the tough, pushy riffs on "Outtathaway!" or "Ain't No Room"'s wound-up, punky pop. Still, "Highly Evolved" is a great introduction to the Vines' eclectic style and suggests that they may have a more distinctive voice — and future — than many of their contemporaries.

Laura Etling (Amazon.com)

Hailed by a growing number as "the future of rock," the Vines are more a conglomeration of the best of the past. The Sydney, Australia, quartet sounds alternately like Nirvana, the Beatles, T. Rex, and even the Beach Boys (and, at times, all of those blended together). On Highly Evolved they present 12 flawlessly crafted songs, each one living up to the title of the album and first song. The wistful yearning of "Homesick," the breakneck force of "Get Free," and the gritty party of "Sunshinin" are proof alone of their deserved success. Sonically more complex than their stripped-down contemporaries White Stripes and the Strokes, the Vines write songs worthy of orchestration. But unlike White Blood Cells or Is This It, this album lacks cohesion. Each song is a world to itself, never quite uniting with the others. But such a critique, normally reserved for more established bands, shows the extent of the Vines’ accomplishments--getting compared to the greats your first time out isn’t too bad.

David Sprague (Barnes&Noble)

The title of this breathless disc is a little bit misleading, since the Vines spend most of the album bashing out proudly back-to-basics rock in the mode of, say, the White Stripes and Hives, with the slightest hint of an Aussie accent. The title track, which barrels by in less than two minutes, is indicative of what the quartet is all about: Frontman Craig Nicholls emotes in Cobain-derived whisper-to-a-scream fashion, while his mates chug along in a three-chord blur. There's a similarly frenzied feel to "Get Free" (which borrows a bit from the Motor City 5, circa John Sinclair) and the antiwork screed "Factory" (a veritable national anthem for the on-the-dole set). The Vines are less successful when they turn things down a notch, however: "Autumn Shade" reaches for a Kinks-meets-Blur sense of suburban art damage but ends up sounding like mere mall-bought ear candy. Still, the band work up enough energy on the majority of Highly Evolved's tunes to make up for the occasional spot of coasting.

(CD Universe)

The Vines: Craig Nicholls (vocals, guitar, piano, percussion); Patrick Matthews (piano, organ, bass, background vocals); David Olliffe (drums). Additional personnel: Rob Schnapf (guitar); Roger Joseph Manning Jr (keyboards); Pete Thomas, Joey Waronker, Victor Indrizzo (drums); Ethan Johns, Steven Rhoades (percussion). Recorded at Sound Factory and Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood, California between July 2001 and February 2002.

Most folks first became aware of Australian rockers the Vines via their cover of the Beatles' "I'm Only Sleeping" on 2001's I AM SAM soundtrack album. A few months down the line, their 2002 debut album HIGHLY EVOLVED took the UK by storm. Shortly thereafter, the album was released in the US with high hopes. The group's basic, no-frills guitar rock should find plenty of friends among fans of the Strokes, the Hives, White Stripes, etc. It's rock & roll stripped to the bone, pared down to charging riffs that reference such evergreen influences as the Stooges and the MC 5, and sharp songcraft with echoes of everything from T. Rex to Nirvana. There are a couple of softer moments on HIGHLY EVOLVED, such as the ruminative "Autumn Shade" and the contemplative "Homesick," but for the most part these Aussie lads lead an electrified charge with all guns blazing, frenzied vocals and sledgehammer rhythms belting out their battle cry of rock with a capital "r."

Chris Ward (CMJ New Music Report, 768, June 24, 2002)

It's like they say, if you have the talent someone will find you. Enter the Vines, a band that practically got its start at the local McDonald's in Sydney, Australia. After a couple of years puttering with guitars and a drum kit, the group ended up in L.A. to record some songs and bang, Vinesmania! Having already been embraced by our friends across the Atlantic, Highly Evolved is sure to see equal, if not better, success Stateside. Best described as a Beatles album that sounds like it was produced and fronted by an only slightly tormented Kurt Cobain, Highly Evolved kicks off with a 90-second kangaroo punch of a title track that sets the tone for what is to come. "Outtathaway," "Factory," "In The Jungle," "Ain't No Room" and "Get Free" are must-listens (and check out the amazing video for "Get Free," which will make you will love the song even more). Though songs can sometimes lead you to a different time and place, Highly Evolved elevates you to a better one.

Lars Rosenblum (Ink Blot Magazine)

Rumour has it that The Vines could be the next Nirvana. I beg to differ - there are plenty of other bands which are much closer neighbours in The Vines' musical neighbourhood. Sure, I don't even need to close my eyes to imagine Kurdt & co. playing the short title track's catchy chorus. Yet I dare you to find a passage anywhere else on the album that you can say the same thing about! Especially the easier-on-the-ear songs - forget it! 
It's more of a British sound, Britpop-punk if you will. Mix in a pinch of Alice In Chains, a dose of soaring Beach Boys harmonies, some Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles, and a hint of Mutations-era Beck. I can't figure out if the vocals remind me of Robyn Hitchcock, The Verve's Richard Ashcroft, or some other British bloke. 
This is rock music! Especially if you take "Highly Evolved," "Outtathaway," "Get Free," or the particularly good "Ain't No Room." The other eight songs are considerably more poppy, but it's a good-time sound all around. "Outtathaway" especially kicks ass. I sincerely hope that these talented lads play a venue near me soon so I can experience it live. "Factory" is catchy as all jumping jacks too, its chorus engraving itself on my grey matter. A solid debut.

Fish Griwkowsky (Edmonton Sun / JAM! Music, July 13, 2002)

Another example of rollicking fun being back in rock and roll, the Vines deserve more credit than just being shovelled into the same pit as the Strokes, White Stripes or Hives. 
Using a lot of ear-pleasing distortion, the Aussie band gets in bed with everything from Brit pop to fuzzy road music for a trip to Antares VII, (see the ferocious Get Free, kind of a Beatles meets Queens of the Stone Age). 
The bonus the Vines have going for them above the new rock bands is a lack of that 9,000% self-consciousness stink. They're just playing happy music, having fun.

Jason Fox (NewMusicalExpress)

What we know: Craig Nicholls is addicted to grass and fast food, has a larynx you could pebble-dash the drive with and, in the right light, could quite easily pass for (a young) Liz Hurley. From his interviews and whirling Tasmanian devil live displays it appears that he is a fiercely reclusive teetotaller barely on nodding terms with conventional reality, proven by both his alien demeanour and a professed love for Swervedriver. You suspect his tenure in the Aussie equivalent of the 'Big Brother' household would be fleeting. 
All well and good. Yet none of these things prepare you for the sheer quality of songwriting this wafer-thin Sydney-born, LA resident exhibits on ‘Highly Evolved’. Seriously. If you’re already halfway to the record shop, tempted by the 95-second assault of ‘Highly Evolved’ and the contagious, dystopic thrash of ‘Get Free’, strap yourself in, because onThe Vines ’ spine-tingling debut 22-year-old Nicholls also tackles blissed-out West Coast balladry (‘Autumn Shade’), throbbing bubblegum pop (‘In The Jungle’) and even flagrant Stooges-ian psycho-delia (‘1969’) without breaking stride. In doing so, as debut album law dictates, he sings about the warmth of the sun on his face, how conventional society like, sucks, and what a bummer relationships with gurls can be. You wouldn’t let your best friend go on like he does in ‘Get Free’ ("She doesn't love me/ She doesn’t love me/ Why should anyone?") but then, they’re not screaming it over the greatest, dumbest riff sinceSupergrass ’ ‘Lose It’ – a big influence – are they? And when The Vines do finally flunk out , ten tracks in, on the jokey ska-tastic ‘Factory’ they at least do it in style. But hey, even ‘Is This It’ had ‘Barely Legal’ on it, right? 
Which is the other thing. Fun as the current colour-coded garage band revival is, ‘Highly Evolved’ makes it look at best inconsequential, and at worst, foolhardy. It’s that sort of album. 
The Vines may resemble a sunburnt Kinks but on ‘Highly Evolved’ they also sound as deranged as a youthful Nirvana, as loopy as Beck did on ‘Loser’, and as thoroughly pissed off as The Who did the first time Pete Townshend caught his reflection in a rehearsal room mirror. No wonder it took three drummers to get all those Keith Moon drum fills right. They’re a shaggy-haired, surf’s up pop band and painfully vulnerable all at the same time. 
When Craig drawls "I’m tired of feeling sick and useless" on a desolate ‘Country Yard’ you genuinely wonder how you’re gonna talk him down from the grungy window ledge with all these melodies lodged in your head. Yet a mere three tracks later, in the wonderful narcoleptic nursery rhyme ‘Mary Jane’ he sounds as carefree as that other great sun-worshipping stoner Evan Dando. If you like your groups to come with intense moodswings, 43 minutes couldn’t pass any quicker. 
Arty and hummable, gloomy but not scared of long lazy afternoons in the sun, ‘Highly Evolved’ is the sort of shiver-down-the spine debut that gets you thinking that if The Strokes were the John the Baptists of rock then just maybe... 

No pressure, mind. 

 

Chris Dahlen (Pitchfork Media, July 30, 2002)

The Vines. Four young guys from Australia determined to tear it up in the States, their end goal being the glorious egotrip of international rock stardom. Now, let's be fair-- most guys starting bands regularly entertain notions of 'hitting the bigtime,' and there isn't a goddamn thing wrong with that. It's just that few are content to play it quite so safe. Even the metal guys have personality. And while I imagine that, somewhere beneath their media-friendly exterior, The Vines might be real characters, you'll find no trace of it on their Capitol Records debut, Highly Evolved. I picture Craig Nicholls and Ryan Griffiths in some lavish London hotel suite at this very moment trying to figure out some way to glue the TV to the ceiling. (Not so easy, is it, champs?) Then Patrick Matthews walks out of the shower demanding, "Ayy, whicha you blokes whacked off in the shampoo?" Hilarity ensues! It's like The Monkees if they wanted to be, say, Silverchair instead of the Beatles.
Yet no life signs penetrate the crystal clarity of this album. I'd even go so far as to say that Highly Evolved may actually be the least fun record of the year, with its grungy vocals and hamfisted guitarwork-- not to mention the vintage Brit-pop and soaring harmonies they've tossed in for broad-range accessibility. It's not even a problem that they tattoo their influences on their foreheads and add nothing to what they steal from The Verve (on the slow songs), Nirvana (if Nirvana were a pop act), and the rest of commercial radio's last twenty years. But did they have to make it so dull? I mean, I understand that it's already a hit, and if anyone gets laid this summer because of this album, that trumps whatever I can say about it. But Highly Evolved has 'dad rock' written all over it. It reeks of product, right down to the special $6 purchase price most stores are pushing: "Why not check out the Vines?"
Of course, the production, courtesy of Rob Schnapf, is impeccable. But then, in typical Schnapf form, it's too impeccable. He's lent his Mr. Clean polish job to luminaries like Beck, as well as many bands who didn't need it-- Guided by Voices, for one example, Elliott Smith for another-- and while Highly Evolved is lush, having been recorded in L.A. over two months with Schnapf's mood-setting collection of vintage instruments, it also sounds plastic; he doesn't let the band make a single mistake anywhere on the album.
Schnapf's production is somewhat augmented by Craig Nicholls, singer, guitarist and lead songwriter, whose mushmouthed vocals at least stray from sterility. Problem is, his unintelligible croon doesn't really work with the more sentimental tracks (which account for at least half the songs here), and even when the music ascends to garage-style rock, his only communicable emotion is the time-honored bratty sneer. Still, Nicholls is a natural talent as a writer. He already knows from killer hooks-- "Highly Evolved" and "Outtathaway!" are fine grunge, switching from bare strumming to throbbing, jagged, yet infectious guitar lines. "Get Free" kicks off with a riff like revving up a lawnmower, and the chorus shows off the band's perfectly pitch-corrected vocal harmonies-- even if the extra-catchy bridge sounds tacked on to make it a bigger hit. And the mini-epic "1969," though sprawling and indulgent, is genuinely refreshing after squeaky-clean hard rock like "In the Jungle" and the obnoxiously beach-ready "Sunshinin'": its tortured mess of an outro drags on long enough that, for once, the two guitarists actually find room to breathe.
Highly Evolved also slows down for some endearing pop, like the peppy, syncopated "Factory." Mellow love song "Mary Jane" shows Nicholls' most sincere and affecting vocals, and "Autumn Shade," colored with acoustic guitar and piano, echoes the melody and eerie harmonies of the Beatles' "Because." But then he gets all serious on us with the yearning harmonies of "Country Yard" and the over-earnest "Homesick." They haven't even been on the road six months and they've already found time to miss Australia?
The Vines get credit for ambition, but Highly Evolved covers so much ground that none of it seems convincing: there's just no emotional depth here. Nicholls is not yet a great singer, and his feelings outpace his ability to express them. But moreover, the Vines are adept enough at rock pastiche that they miss why the Beatles took a decade to get to Let It Be. With Schnapf's help, they've crammed an entire career into one album: from song to song we skip from hard-rock teen raunch, to the popcraft of a well-behaved studio band, to the old-soul, "wish I were home again" pathos of mature, balding rockers. And it all has to come through a sneer.

Gareth Grundy (Q Magazine, June, 2002)

Wanna be a rock’n’roll star? Then you’d better be the definite article, brash, flash and with a declamatory "The" in front of your name. After all, it’s worked for The Strokes, The Hives and The White Stripes, who’ve risen fast on an easy-to-read blur of clattering guitars, neat threads and an assertive presence.
One look at The Vines – pipecleaner limbs, fringes, from nowhere to the Top 30 with the Highly Evolved single – and you’d swear these bands are being bred in a lab. However, the Australian quartet’s debut album justifies the fuss that followed its title track’s bubblegum approximation of Nirvana. 
Frontman Craig Nicholls is the key, an appealing, vague fellow with a weapons-grade scream and an ability to steal from the best with panache. So while Country Yard is Beck circa Mutations and 1969 recalls Crazy Horse freaking out, nothing seems too derivative when filtered through Nicholls’ headspace, a place where songs are called Autumn Shade, Sunshinin’ and Country Yard. His is an endearing game of fantasy rock’n’roll, not posturing or self-destructive, just inviting. It’d be rude not to accept.

Christian Hoard (RollingStone, 901, July 2, 2002)

Right now, the Vines are the toast of England, and it's easy to see why. Just as the British are going barmy for such New York garage revivalists as the Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, these four handsome Australian lads are doing a fine job of plundering decades worth of trashy-yet-tuneful American rock. Besides serving up stripped-down garage anthems ("Get Free," "Outtathaway!") and updates of Bleach-era Nirvana ("Highly Evolved," "In the Jungle"), their debut album also trafficks in the spacey, pseudopsychedelic aura that has defined a lot of recent Brit pop - witness "Mary Jane," which duplicates the day-dreamy vibe of the Beatles' "Dear Prudence" as well as any Oasis song. Highly Evolved is a promising first effort that suffers from retro fever, natch, but with all of their members still in their early twenties, the Vines have plenty of time (and enough songwriting smarts) to outgrow their influences.