Two Vines

Two Vines is the third studio album by Australian electronic music duo Empire of the Sun. It was released on 28 October 2016 by Virgin EMI Records. The album features guest appearances from Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham, Wendy Melvoin, Henry Hey, and Tim Lefebvre.

Background
The duo started writing their third studio album after contributing music to the 2014 film Dumb and Dumber To. The album was recorded in Hawaii and Los Angeles, and it was co-produced by Empire of the Sun and Peter Mayes alongside regular collaborator Jonathan Sloan. In November 2015, lead singer Luke Steele noted that the album was "75 percent there".

On 22 August 2016, it was announced that the album was titled Two Vines and would be released on 28 October. It features contributions from Fleetwood Mac singer-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, Wendy Melvoin (from Prince's The Revolution band), and David Bowie collaborators Henry Hey and Tim Lefebvre. Nick Littlemore explained the inspiration behind the title as "this image of a modern city overtaken by jungle".

The album's lead single, "High and Low", was released on 24 August 2016. This was shortly followed by the album's first promotional single, "Two Vines", which was released the following day. "To Her Door" was released on 30 September 2016 as the album's second single.

Critical reception
Two Vines received generally positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 66, based on 14 reviews.

Personnel

 * Empire of the Sun – production
 * Steve Bach – additional keyboards (track 10)
 * Lindsey Buckingham – backing vocals, guitars (track 11)
 * Evan Frasier – mbira (track 10)
 * Teddy Geiger – additional vocals (track 8)
 * Mark Goldenberg – acoustic guitar (tracks 2, 3, 6, 11)
 * Michael Harris – engineering (tracks 6, 12), drum and percussion engineering (track 10)
 * Henry Hey – keyboards (tracks 1, 6, 7, 9)
 * Scott Horscroft – production assistance
 * SK Kakraba – gyil (track 10)
 * Mito Kasuya – vocals (track 9)
 * Tim Lefebvre – bass (tracks 9, 10)


 * Alan Mark Lightner – marimba, xylophone (track 10)
 * Mike Marsh – mastering
 * Peter Mayes – engineering, mixing, production
 * Jake Najor – drums (tracks 6, 10, 11)
 * Next Episode – artwork
 * Roof Studio – artwork
 * Todd Simon – percussion direction (track 10)
 * Todd M. Simon – marimba, vibraphone (track 10)
 * Donnie Sloan – production
 * Dexter Story – slit drums (track 10)
 * Te'Amir Yohannes Sweeney – slit drums (track 10)
 * David Wilder – bass (track 7)