Crowded House released Intriguer

Intriguer Crowded House

Released: June 11, 2010 Peak: 50 US, 12 UK, 11 AU Sales (in millions): -- Genre: adult alternative rock

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Saturday Sun (4/17/10, --) Archer’s Arrows Amsterdam Either Side of the World (8/28/10, --) Falling Dove Isolation Twice if You’re Lucky (11/8/10, --) Inside Out Even If Elephants The Players: Neil Finn (vocals, guitar, piano) Nick Seymour (bass) Mark Hart (piano, keyboards, electric guitar) Matt Sherrod (drums)

Rating: 3.450 out of 5.00 (average of 24 ratings)

About the Album: Crowded House formed as an offshoot of Split Enz, a band initially helmed by Tim Finn, but later handed off to little brother Neil. Neil developed a more commercial sound which evolved into Crowded House and the #2 U.S. hit “Don’t Dream It’s Over” in 1987. The band would record four albums in less than a decade’s time, but folded up their tent after 1993’s Together Alone. Neil spent the next decade and then some on solo projects and collaborations with brother Tim before reconnecting with House mate Nick Seymour in the wake of original Crowded House member Paul Hester’s suicide. Neil’s intended solo project at the time transformed into a comeback for Crowded House, the 2007 set Time on Earth. Proving that wasn’t just a one-off reunion, Finn and Seymour return again with multi-instrumentalist Mark Hart and drummer Matt Sherrod, who had done some work on the Time on Earth album and return here as full-fledged band members. The group brought producer Jim Scott (who’d worked with Wilco) on board, “who then continued to produce the whole album in Finn’s studio, Roundhead Studios in Auckland, New Zealand.” WK The band also “hired various guest musicians throughout the recording process, including multiinstrumentalist Don McGlashan, Lisa Germano on violin, Jon Brion on vocals and guitars, James Milne on additional vocals, and Finn’s wife Sharon and son, Liam Finn contribute backing vocals and guitars, respectively.” WK Considering Time on Earth began as a Neil solo effort, it is no surprise that this is “more of a band effort.” TH The group “settle into comfortable craft on Intriguer,” STE having “managed to arrive at a certain age without either denying their mortality or seeming defeated by it.” EG This “isn’t as self-consciously weighty as Time on Earth,” STE understandable since that album grew out of the band mourning for Hester, and “it’s also not as hazy as Finn’s pair of solo LPs. In tone and timbre, it’s closest to the second Finn Brothers album, the ruminative Everyone Is Here, but it lacks the reflective undertow of that 2004 album; it may be subdued, but it’s not reveling in its melancholy, it’s riding a gentle wave, swaying from song to song.” STE “Finn claims to have experimented with new sounds here,” TH saying “Intriguer is exotic in parts, traditional in origin.” AZ Certainly “there are songs that bristle with ambition, with strange undercurrents and scuffed melodies.” MC Indeed, “the tempo gets slightly heated” STE at times – “Inside Out works a nicely grinding guitar riff” STE while “opening track Saturday Sun, with its squalling electronics buzzing beneath vigorous guitars” MC and a vocoder which offers “a ghostly and effective touch.” TH The song is “unexpectedly reminiscent of Sonic Youth’s The Eternal.” MC Overall, though, the album “doesn’t mess with the Crowded House formula.” TH “Finn’s handling of a tune remains strong and his poetic sense of place, familiar to fans of the band, remains.” TH However, “those hoping for the instantly gratifying melodies of catalogue classics like ‘Weather With You’ will have to dig a little deeper” TH as Intriguer “doesn’t command attention so much as it teases it.” STE Some songs “plod amiably along, as comfortable as a fraying pair of slippers,” MC such as the “anaesthetised 1950s doo-wop meets late-1960s psychedelia of Isolation.” MC To non-fans, “the album's more conventionally crafted pop songs…invariably sound dull” MC but for fans, songs like “the gently shuffling Twice if You’re Lucky will be perfection itself.” MC There’s also “the wistful dreaming of Amsterdam and the joyful atmospherics of Either Side of the World, with its loose samba beat and disco-influenced piano (actually inspired by John Paul Young’s ‘Love Is in the Air’). The subtlety in the strength of material like the radio-friendly ‘Saturday Sun’ and the gently epic Archer’s Arrows bears out the band’s instinct not to take their experimentation to excess.” TH While the album may not be loaded with hits, the “light touch suits Finn’s songs; he’s favoring subtle craftsmanship over immediate hooks” STE as he “crafts songs that capture the enduring thrills and chills of life and love after youth. He and his band deliver them with a grace that doesn’t detract from their rueful punch.” EG The mood of the album “is soothing, something that pays off great dividends upon close listens. It may not be flashy but it’s sturdy and expertly honed.” STE “There are muddied moments which let some songs down: Elephants, for example, fails to transcend its ponderous title. But these dips are infrequent, and occur towards the end of the album.” TH In the end, Intriguer holds “together better as an album than any Finn project in recent memory.” STE Finn himself says of the album, “It may just be the best thing we’ve done.” AZ Notes: A special edition of the album includes a live DVD.

Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon.com MC Maddy Costa (6/10/2010). The Guardian STE Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide EG Elysa Gardner (7/13/2010). USA Today TH Tom Hocknell (6/2/2010). BBC Music WK Wikipedia Last updated 6/4/2021.

Crowded House released Time on Earth

Time on Earth Crowded House

Released: June 29, 2007 Peak: 46 US, 3 UK, 38 CN, 11 AU Sales (in millions): 0.45 world (includes US and UK) Genre: adult alternative rock

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Nobody Wants To Don’t Stop Now (6/16/07, –) She Called Up (9/17/07, –) Say That Again Pour Le Monde (12/10/07, --) Even a Child Heaven That I’m Making A Sigh Silent House English Trees Walked Her Way Down Transit Lounge You Are the One to Make Me Cry People Are Like Suns Total Running Time: 58:31 The Players: Neil Finn (vocals, guitar, piano) Nick Seymour (bass, backing vocals) Mark Hart (piano, keyboards, electric guitar, harmony vocals) Matt Sherrod (drums, backing vocals)

Rating: 3.790 out of 5.00 (average of 21 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: Crowded House released four albums in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Frontman Neil Finn then ventured out as a solo artist and released “the kaleidoscopic Try Whistling This and the hazy One Nil, both book-ended by albums with his brother Tim.” AMG Year after year went by without new music from Crowded House. Then tragedy struck in 2005 when Paul Hester, who’d drummed with Finn on all four Crowded House albums and even worked with him back in his Split Enz days – committed suicide. This sparked Neil to reconnect with Nick Seymour, the bassist on all four Crowded House albums. Multi-instrumentalist Mark Hart, who’d worked on Together Alone, also rejoined the fold and what had initially been intended as Finn’s third solo album evolved into the first Crowded House album in fourteen years. However, this still looks and sounds more like a Neil Finn solo outing than a Crowded House effort. Most of the album was recorded with session musicians – nost notably guitarist Johnny Marr of the Smiths. The team of Finn, Seymour, Hart, and Sherrod only appear on four of the album’s tracks. As a result, “it’s streamlined where their previous albums were ragged, and the most notable element that’s been trimmed is the humor that ran throughout each of their albums.” AMG “This curtailing of good spirits is an appropriate, even expected, reaction to Hester’s death, and his ghost does linger over the whole of Time on Earth.” AMG Nick Seymour did the cover art, as he did for the previous Crowded House albums, and made it a tribute to Hester. The cover – a direct reference to the sea serpent in Olaus Magnus’ book History of the Northern Peoples, features a blue dragon eating a human, a symbol of the depression that consumed Hester. WK Of course, Hester’s presence is “most apparent in the subdued, contemplative tone of the album.” AMG Uncut’s Bud Scoppa says the opening cut, Nobody Wants To, sets “the prevailing melancholy mood.” WK Regarding People Are Like Suns, Finn said “part of it is the idea that people burn brightly and then they fade out.” WK Yahoo! Music’s Andy Strickland asserts that English Trees is a “brilliant weaving of a tale of loss and yearning…[that puts him] up there with the very best songwriters working today.” WK Less direct are songs like Silent House, which Finn initially wrote with the Dixie Chicks prior to Hester’s death. It first appeared on their 2006 album Taking the Long Way, but resurfaces here. The song reads specifically as a reminiscing excursion sparked by going through a grandmother’s belongings after her death from Alzheimer’s. However, on a grander scale it works as a reflection on loss of loved ones in general. “This mildly mournful vibe is enhanced by the subdued tone of the album.” AMG Billboard’s Jessica Letkemann says, “Gone are the more overtly ‘80s top 40 flourishes.” WK “This set of songs takes its time, relying heavily on ballads and meditative, mid-tempo pop tunes, and even the brighter numbers like She Called Up are far from sprightly.” AMG “Finn may in a ruminative mode but Time on Earth is not heavy-handed or oppressively sorrowful: it’s contemplative and sweetly melancholy. Given this hushed vibe, it’s not surprising that the album, as a whole, is a bit of a grower, as Finn’s tunes take some time to reveal their gifts. A few songs have an immediate impact; such as the gently propulsive Don’t Stop Now, the snappy, jangly Marr collaboration Even a Child (the closest this record comes to a rocker) and the spacy, tongue-in-cheek Transit Lounge, featuring Beth Rowley as vocal support; but most of these are subtle songs that unfold at their own speed. It may take some time for the songs to catch hold, but once they do, they dig deep, sticking around in the memory like much of Finn’s best work.” AMG Pour Le Monde (French for “For the World”), one of Finn’s “achingly fine ballads,” WK was inspired by a demonstration Finn observed in Paris against the war on terror. WK Transit Lounge is about the time Finn spent in transit lounges around the world, particularly Singapore and Bangkok. WK “Even if the best of this album does stand proudly alongside the best of Finn’s music, Time on Earth is still quite unlike any of his other records: strangely, it feels more like a solo album than either of his solo albums, partially because it’s such an introspective work, partially because it sustains a bittersweet tone from beginning to end, whereas his other solo efforts careened wildly between moods.” AMG While this is “Neil Finn’s show, this also does feel like the work of a band, since there is a warmth here, a feeling of support, that sounds like a group, not a one-man-band. This curious intermingling of sounds and intent makes Time on Earth a haunting yet comforting affair that is quite unique in Neil Finn’s body of work, yet functions as an oddly appropriate, utterly worthy, comeback as Crowded House.” AMG Notes: The CD was released with a bonus DVD.

Resources and Related Links: AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/3/2008; last updated 8/9/2021.