Austrailians provide emotion with none of the terrible soap operas...
And here it is. The obligatory slow ballad. Thankfully, this offering from the Vines isn't the same as the usual boring affairs that most ballads are; the Vines have decided to -shock- add interesting things into "Winning Days", the title song from the already released "Winning Days" album.
The song starts with Craig Nicholls (vocals, guitar) huskily (but not Sterephonics-huskily) singing to his minimalistic acoustic guitar picking. After this, the drums slowly slink into the background of the song, and Nicholls is joined by more unkempt-hair clones, backing up his own voice, moving in and out of unison and harmony. The song drifts into the chorus, and this instrumental arrangement is kept the same, until a distorted guitar bursts through for the solo, which is certainly interesting, to say the least. This solo's last note holds out, whilst Nicholls sings a final line, apparently ending the song. The song changes at this point, going into a nice extended outro, filled with more polyphonic vocals and adding in some suspended chords and unusual intervals in the vocal harmony, and continues in this vein until the song actually finishes this time, leaving some discarded strings holding onto the final note.
This song is quite distanced from the Vines' other, more rocking singles, such as "Outtathaway", "Get Free" and the most recent "Ride". However, despite its differences, there is still enough of the Vines' charm here to remind you of them. The Vines are maturing, but are they going to sink or swim? Only time (ie. the third album) will tell.