- Critic score
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- By date
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A promising first effort that suffers from retro fever.
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OK, so it tails off towards the end, and there's something rather dishonest about a band so young releasing a track like '1969', but even then it's quite endearing to see them trying to build such an immediate mythology around themselves.
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Highly Evolved is clunkiest on long, drawn-out stuff like "Homesick" and "Country Yard," but singer Craig Nicholls has most of Kurt Cobain's shrieking mannerisms down, and, like most grunge, the band's simple three-chord rock is most exciting when played extremely fast.
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The record's big-rock sound works against it, as does its back-and-forth swing from melodic Britpop to room-filling volume.
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It's hard to figure out exactly why everybody is so excited about this record.... There is something there to like -- plenty, in fact. But it is also disjointed and sometimes maddening.
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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.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 45 out of 50
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Mixed: 1 out of 50
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Negative: 4 out of 50
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Aug 28, 2014
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Jun 28, 2012
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Mar 26, 2020