Crowded House Time On Earth by: Tom Bradbury Mon:16-Jul-07 Label: EMI Year: 2007 WB rating 75 out of 100

Crowded House have never exactly been a trendy band, nor have they ever shown any desire to be so. They have never been pinned to any particular movement in music, and for this reason they should count themselves fortunate, as that is one of the easiest ways to date yourself. Therefore it should come as no surprise that Time On Earth does not sound particularly in step with today’s rock world. It is however a collection of thoughtful songs by a songwriter whose down-to-earth writing and ability with melodies has always been his calling card. This album is not just a retread of previous Crowded House material and Neil Finn continues to move forward, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.

Time On Earth is incredibly easy to listen to, but that is sometimes all it is – ease of consumption does not necessarily mean a song will be remembered after the final chord is plucked. During the middle tracks of this album, Crowded House fail to make much more than pleasant background music. At 58 minutes the album is really too long and it definitely could have benefited from being a couple of tracks shorter. Still, Time On Earth is extremely comforting – there is a certain quality of stability in Finn’s work, and its domesticity is reassuring rather than off-putting. Music critics have always had a particular tendency to be dismissive of bands with a lack of edge, or groups that celebrated home comforts, one of the many reasons Coldplay has taken such a battering in recent years. Crowded House are a self proclaimed “Cup of tea and a joint band”, and it is for this reason that Time On Earth is a such a natural progression from their previous work.

Neil Finn’s melodies typically used to be ‘hit you over the head with a sledgehammer’ obvious and immediately infectious, but since Crowded House’s last album over 13 years ago, he has grown into a more subtle songwriter. Time On Earth takes a while to grow, and it is even more steeped in easy-listening territory than previous Crowded House excursions. It’s fairly common that the older a songwriter gets the more meandering his songs become, reflective more of an inward state of affairs than any desire to achieve fame through accessibility of melody. Unlike the Crowded House of old, this is not a sing along album, and there are not many obvious hits, apart from maybe ‘Don’t Stop Now’ and ‘She Called Up’.

The latter being a jaunty number completely in conflict with its macabre lyrics. Finn sings: “She called up and gave me the news/it made me so sad, sad, sad”. It comes across very much as a homage to Finn’s Split Enz days, especially during the harmony filled bridge, which possesses Enz-trademark theatricality. Yet ‘She Called Up’ is very much an oddity on this album, where for the most part Crowded House are majorly subdued, concentrating on production and warmth. They now have an outfit that is well suited to this purpose. Mark Hart’s input was one of the things that made Together Alone such a pleasurable album from an ambient perspective. He is a master of tasteful and soulful guitar parts – never the dominant persona on a track but always providing needed weight to the soundscape. On Time On Earth, Hart again fleshes out Crowded House’s sound, which continues to grow more rich.

‘A Sigh’ sees Crowded House return to the dreamy territory of ‘Private Universe’. Reverb and delay cascade around Finn’s acoustic guitar and pure voice, giving the song a very Daniel Lanois feel - if you are not going for the strong melody then you may as well focus on the texture of the soundscape. Those are the two things that Crowded House have always done well. The best track on this album is the one where Crowded House find a balance between melody and sonic texture, much like they did for the entirety of the Together Alone album. ‘Silent House’ is a beautifully composed combination of fuzzed out vague guitar and a vintage Finn melody, and together with ‘A Sigh’ it provides a solid anchor for the record. There is a tremendous warmth to ‘Silent House’, like a Crowded House interpretation of Loveless-era My Bloody Valentine.

Time On Earth does not provide the same levels of melodic bliss that Crowded House have been known for in the past, but what it does offer is a degree of reassurance and calm that should not be discounted. There are still moments of transcendently infectious pop on this album, but this is no longer Neil Finn’s core direction – he is still evolving as a songwriter, becoming more subtle and also more settled as the years pass by.