Große Dinge werfen ihre Schatten voraus:

After ending 2002 with the kind of tension that threatened to send THE VINES “either way” the band have finally finished their “more psychedelic” second record.

NME.COM can reveal ‘Winning Days’, will be released on March 8, preceded by the highly charged first single ‘Ride’ on February 23. However, at the end of 2002, it seemed unlikely the follow-up to ‘Highly Evolved’ would ever see the light of day.

A punishing world tour led tensions to boil over, culminating in singer Craig Nicholls and Patrick Matthews going for each other’s throats onstage at a gig in Boston.

To regroup, The Vines moved to the remote Bearsville studio in the woods outside of upstate New York to start recording with longtime producer Rob Schnapf. It was a risky choice for the notoriously erratic group. Although more of a band effort, Nicholls still had the “final say” on most the decisions on ‘Winning Days’, while many of the ideas came together when the band were most stressed on the road.

Bassist Patrick Matthews told NME.COM: “The album could have gone either way. We could have ended up at each other’s throats because we were out in the middle of nowhere. But there was only one day like that out of three months.”

Describing the sound of the album, Patrick said: “The harder songs are harder and the softer songs are maybe the ones which have improved more. It’s more psychedelic than the first record. Just like ‘Highly Evolved’ there’s a few snotty punk ones and then there are the slow songs which have the real mellotron sound on it.”

The tracklisting runs:

‘Ride’
‘Animal Machine’
‘TV Pro’
‘Autumn Shade 2’
‘Evil Town’
‘Winning Days’
‘She’s Got Something’
‘Rainfall’
‘Amnesia’
‘Sunchild’
‘Fuck The World’

Falls “winning days” auch nur annähernd so gut wird wie das Debüt “highly evolved” damals, dürfte das Album ein heißer Anwärter auf den Titel “popkulturjunkies album des jahres 2004” werden. Seite an Seite mit dem neuen Air-Werk “talkie walkie” natürlich. Denn das wird definitiv ein Über-Hammer.