Patience now, they're gonna string you out.

Thanks to a comment by Tom, I have just begun yet another festival o' listening to The Vines' 2002 Highly Evolved LP. What an incredible set. You can hear just as much Pink Floyd as Nirvana... and the songwriting is so, so much more sophisticated than what you tend to hear these days.

The fact that they managed to pull this together while Craig Nicholls was going around with undiagnosed asperger's syndrome, made worse by all the weed he was smoking, is absolutely incredible. The man's a kegitimate musical genius of the kind you don't really see often, and it's a shame that the band's legitimately messy actions before Nicholls's diagnosis have alienated them so much. They are, however, still making music, and I'm still hoping the industry will get over themselves and give the Vines a shot at a major comeback. There is a lot of potential there that remains, for the most part, untapped.

Giving Winning Days (2004) another shot, too. The sense I have had so far is it's a lot more forced-sounding, but you can still hear a lot of the same intelligence and distinct feel. Haven't made up my mind. also need to get a hold of Vision Valley (2006), which came after Nicholls got help.