The Vines
Winning Days
(Capitol)
The perpetually stoned Craig Nicholls leads his band of Aussies through more of the same on Winning Days. There are flashes of brilliance here: The opener “Ride With Me” is a gloriously brash call-to-arms. “TV Pro” is the pissed-off child of the Paisley Underground and UK punk, while “Fuck the World” channels the snottiness of what made grunge great. The rest lazily rehashes riffs from Highly Evolved. The Vines could rule the world if Nicholls could ignore his bong once in a while.
—Johnston Farrow
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2007.