It was a sad day for anyone who loved pop music when Paul Hester, drummer/vocalist for the then-defunct Crowded House, decided in 2005 that the world wasn’t a place he wanted to be anymore, and ended his own life. Although it wasn’t entirely a secret that Hester had been fighting depression for a long time, it’s still hard for me to reconcile his untimely end with his wicked sense of humor, and his sheer love of music. When I think of Hester, I think of him in some of the old clips from the ’80s, a smile on his rubber face, lost in the joy of whatever song was playing — “Now We’re Getting Somewhere,” maybe, or “Sister Madly.” That’s the image of him that I want to keep.
At any rate, Hester’s death casts a long, long shadow over Time On Earth, the first proper album for Crowded House since 1993’s Together Alone. The current iteration of the group retains the other two core members, singer/guitarist and principal songwriter Neil Finn, and bassist/harmony vocalist Nick Seymour. The lineup is fleshed out by latter-day guitarist Mark Hart and former Beck drummer Matt Sherrod, at least on paper, but the pair only appear on four of the album’s fourteen tracks, meaning that Time On Earth is for the most part simply the work of Finn and Seymour.
“Nobody wants to think about it. Nobody wants to talk about it,” Finn’s aching voice declares on the opening cut, “Nobody Wants To.” “They make it go away, pretending that it’s all OK.” It’s hard not to connect this with the band’s loss, and it sets a solemn tone for the album that never really lifts. The humor that was normally injected into even the most somber Crowded House releases (think Woodface) is essentially absent here; even the semi-jokey “Transit Lounge” can’t keep a smile on its face for long, as the later verses descend into the same melancholy that pervades the rest of the record.
What remains is classic, almost archetypal Neil Finn: slightly oblique lyrics, heavenly melodies, and arrangements so carefully crafted that they almost seem plated in gold. Seymour holds his own, to be sure, but this is Finn’s showcase — perhaps fittingly, given that the album began life with the idea that it would be a Finn solo album. It’s hardly a departure for him, which is probably the easiest criticism to level at Time On Earth, but it isn’t as if Finn is slacking off — this album is strong enough to stand alongside his best work. This is high praise: there’s a reason that Finn is often considered the finest songwriter ever produced by New Zealand, and it’s not just that the only competition outside of his own family that many record consumers in the US at least can name is that guy from OMC.
This is not to say that Time On Earth is immediately “catchy” in a Pure Pop For Now People sense; anyone scanning the record looking for another “Don’t Dream It’s Over” won’t find one. But it spins out like magic if you give it enough time, if you really listen to the ethereal wistfulness of “A Sigh,” or the sparkling interplay of the Johnny Marr collaboration “Even A Child” (which, by the way, is one of the more inspired things Johnny’s put his name to in several years). If the mood isn’t particularly wide-ranging, the album more than makes up for it in depth. It’s well worth the investment of a few hours to play Time On Earth multiple times; it will sound better each time you hear it.
Expectations are usually pretty low when a band re-forms a decade and a half later, minus a key member — and with good reason, as anyone who made the mistake of picking up, say, A Light at the End of the World will tell you. Time On Earth proves a happy exception, perhaps because of the tribute aspects of this release, or perhaps because Neil Finn, unlike many famous singers whose bands broke up, has managed to produce useful music during the intervening years (check out 2004’s woefully under-heralded Everyone Is Here, the second album Neil released with brother Tim as The Finn Brothers if you don’t believe me). It doesn’t replace Temple of Low Men or Woodface — it’s not coming from the same place, for one thing — but it’s more than a worthy addition to the band’s legacy: it’s a truly great album in its own right, a near-perfect slice of pop melancholia that’s been polished until it shines.
Release date: July 10, 2007
Label: EMI/Parlophone
Rating: 9/10
2 Comments »
First, I said “one of the more inspiring things.” Don’t go all troll on me, Der Kommisar ^_~
And…if the other choice is Modest Mouse, then yes, I’ll vote for this. Not a MM fan here.
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Comment by Commissar Startastic — September 24, 2007 @ 4:08 pm
Most inspiring thing Johnny Mar has done? Oh come on. What about Modest Mouse?