Vines Catch Rock’s New Wave

It’s easy to see why the British rock press, which is on a roll in spotting exciting young bands first these days, has flipped over Craig Nicholls, the leader of the Australian rock group the Vines.

On stage Friday at the Roxy, the 24-year-old singer-songwriter looked as if he could be the young, hyperactive brother of Ryan Adams, another media fave, and he sang with the urgency and conviction of Kurt Cobain and a dozen other seminal rock figures.

Like the White Stripes, the Hives and other bands that are being hailed as the heart of a new wave of passionate and exciting rock forces, the Vines reject the drab commercial rock strains of the late ‘90s in favor of the music’s early, classic values.

Indeed, the music on the band’s just-released debut album, “Highly Evolved,” seems almost too perfectly suited to the spirit of these changing times, so that it’s tempting to wonder if the Vines aren’t doing a bit of bandwagon-hopping.

In the Capitol album, which entered the national sales chart this month at No. 11, the music ranges from howling Cobain desperation of the title tune and the Hives-styled garage-rock sensibilities of “Outtathaway!” to the psychedelic Beatles haze of “Autumn Shade” and the ska-bounce of “Factory.”

But the Vines blew away any nagging questions about their artistic authenticity Friday, in the group’s first local date since the release of the album.

Taking the stage after a set by OK Go, a Chicago group with a smart, tuneful style reminiscent in places of the England’s once wondrous Squeeze, the Vines showed immediate authority and punch.

As his bandmates (Patrick Matthews on bass, Ryan Griffiths on guitar and Hamish Rosser on drums) conveyed with equal precision the haunting, dreamlike or explosive qualities in the music, Nicholls began seducing listeners into his world with a stage manner that was once richly theatrical and convincingly personal.

You often get the sense with young performers that they have spent countless hours looking at photos or film clips of their rock heroes, imagining themselves in the same scenes.

Over the course of an hour, Nicholls stepped into several of those classic rock footsteps. He’s narcissistic, rebellious, vulnerable and teasing.

But Nicholls’ commitment to his art isn’t just skin-deep. As a writer and singer, he seems to understand that the challenge of an artist is to fearlessly explore the sometimes raw, wounded layers of emotion.

“Get Free” is a two-minute blast of rock adrenalin that starts out like a familiar declaration of youthful independence. “I’m gonna get free, I’m gonna get free, ride into the sun.”

But the lyrics take a darker twist that reaches for the emotional bruises that Cobain often expressed with Nirvana: “She never loved me, she never loved me, why should anyone?”

As the set unfolded, however, it was some of the slower, subtler songs from the album that hit the hardest--songs, including the five-minute “Homesick” and six-minute “Mary Jane”--that allowed Nicholls to stretch out and dig deepest inside.

In perhaps a salute to his rock elders, Nicholls savaged the drum kit with his guitar at the end of the hourlong set.

But the most lasting image was when he put a towel over his head and face and took a few uncertain steps. In the best moments of the Vines’ music, Nicholls demonstrates the same willingness to step boldly into unknown territory as a writer.