Time On Earth

Last spring at Coachella, the reunited Crowded House was given the thankless task of preceding the reunited Rage Against the Machine on the very same stage. Needless to say, reports were mixed as to how well the crowd, swelled by Rage fans staking out an early spot during Crowded House's set, responded to the band's comeback. But despite the antipodean group's intermittent success around the globe, there's never been a clear place for a songwriter like Neil Finn.

Finn may lack the hip bona fides that Coachella thrives on, but he easily outclasses most of the competition across the board. When asked on a radio show several years ago to name a songwriter who sounded like the Beatles but didn't simply rip them off, Steve Earle quickly named Finn. Finn has fans in several other perhaps unlikely corners of the pop and rock world as well. His 2001 live album 7 Worlds Collide featured a band comprising Johnny Marr, Lisa Germano, two members of Radiohead, and Eddie Vedder.

While Finn's perhaps best known for Crowded House, he's never been the type to coast on the Crowded House name. After all, the first signs of his pop genius came when he joined his big brother Tim in Split Enz at a mere 19 and immediately established himself as a pop wunderkind. Crowded House came next, finding great success first in America before conquering the rest of the world. Cult fame followed, as Crowded House was put on permanent hiatus and Finn's solo career showed him taking several idiosyncratic steps that further burnished his reputation as a pop songwriter par excellence perennially averse to clichés.

Reuniting Crowded House, honestly, may be the ultimate cliché, but hey, Finn's always been the sentimental sort. Despite a sometimes contentious relationship with brother Tim in both Split Enz and, briefly, in Crowded House, he has occasionally re-teamed with him in the Enz and as the Finn Brothers, a celebration of their filial bond; despite Neil's solo career in progress, the Finns just did it again in 2004 after their mother died. As for Crowded House, the idea to dust off the name came after the 2005 suicide of founding drummer Paul Hester, who had left the band while touring behind its fourth and (then) final album, 1993's Together Alone.

The absence of Hester is in part what makes Time on Earth such an initially dubious reunion. Yes, bassist Nick Seymour is back in the fold, but Hester's by necessity been replaced by a new drummer, Matt Sherrod, a veteran of Beck's band. Filling out the ranks is Mark Hart (a one-time Supertramp hired gun), who had joined Crowded House in time for Together Alone. As usual, it's Finn in control, so Seymour or not, why call it Crowded House at all?

Yet just a few tracks into Time on Earth and there's no question how much the disc sounds not like Split Enz, not the Finn Brothers or solo Neil Finn, but, yes, like Crowded House. The economy of Ethan Johns' and Steve Lillywhite's production helps, as do the straightforward arrangements and, most important of all, Finn's most commercial and least quirky set of songs since 1991's Woodface, or even the group's self-titled 1986 debut. The mood is still often melancholic and dark, but the no muss four-piece interplay showcases Finn's gift, as demonstrated by "Don't Dream It's Over" on down, for finding optimism on the outskirts of defeat.

"Nobody Wants To", with its atmospheric guitar and backing vocals, eases the transition from Together Alone, but by the first single "Don't Stop Now" the mood has perked. "She Called Up" crosses the manic glee of "Something So Strong" with a quirky nyah-nyah bridge worthy of prime Madness. Or Spilt Enz, for that matter. The lyrics are essentially Finn's take on making lemonade from lemons: "The hurt that you have so close," he sings, "is something better now."

"Even a Child" bears the unmistakable chiming stamp of Finn buddy (and co-writer) Johnny Marr, back for more, while the album elsewhere allows Finn to retool and reclaim "Silent House", his contribution to the Dixie Chicks' albm Taking The Long Way, as a tribute to Hester. As always, Finn's ballads shine, with the piano-led anti-war "Pour Le Monde" and the electric-piano and strings waltz "You Are The One to Make Me Cry" weepy without being wimpy (even if neither quite holds a candle to the hypnotic and graceful "Gentle Hum" from the last Finn Brothers disc). Then again, the perfectly named "A Sigh" sounds like just that, a gorgeous daydream of a song.

All is not perfect. Like Woodface, at nearly an hour long and weighed down by a few too many mid-tempo tracks, Time on Earth gets a little out of the band's control. "Transit Lounge" features a distracting turn from singer Beth Rowley, while the nostalgic Old Country tribute "English Trees" probably would have worked better with brother Tim.

These are minor quibbles, though, as Finn's forte has always been as a songwriter first and foremost, not a pretentious album-length crafter of grand cohesive statements or conveyor of didactic meaning. He writes deeply personal pop songs with oblique lyrics and deceptively tricky melodies, but no matter who (or what) Finn is mourning, he leaves it up to the listener to make it all fit. As easy as it may be for some to dismiss Crowded House as easy listening, it's the band's open-ended quality, its dedication to both bare emotion and ambiguity, that in some ways make it the most difficult kind of listen of all.