CROWDED HOUSE Intriguer
Universal
While their appearance at the recent West Coast Blues N’ Roots festival had much of the audience in nostalgic raptures, Neil Finn and co. have maintained that like, post-2007 reformation, is not founded merely on nostalgia itself. Born from soundchecks and sessions as Crowded House toured the world in 2008-09, their new album, Intriguer, is representative of the energy their new life has conjured.
First single, Saturday Sun, echoes that perfect pop song immediacy that Neil Finn cornered in early Crowded House years, but is a dirtier, simple beast. Indeed those perfectly formed moments are to be found on Intriguer, but in different places, as songs such as Either Side Of The World roll from pop to samba (closing on a keyboard line that is a stairway to a cumulo nimbus) or Falling In Love which segues from ethereal folk to Let It-Be-ish Beatles to higher, heavenly crescendos, the latter feeling also reached on Isolation and Twice If You’re Lucky (melodically and vocally so).
Songs such as Amsterdam and Twice If You’re Lucky
tweak at emotions that are contemplative, but not morose. It’s a gift that Finn has always gifted the listener with, but not for him is there the temptation of merely giving it the ‘classic Crowded Crowdies’ treatment. Rather than new light through old windows, there’s certainly new light on the horizon.
BOB GORDON
***1/2
OASIS
Time Flies... 1994-2009
Sony
And so it is that it’s all over for Oasis, a band who defined their time and then for whom time ran away from. Never has a band so madly shook the world with its first two albums, then morphed into a heritage act almost immediately following that period.
As such, it’s quite telling that two-disc Time Flies... 1994-2009 is tracked chronologically. So the hits from 1994’s Definitely Maybe and 1995’s (What’s The Story?) Morning Glory take up three-quarters of disc one and at that point the main part of the tale is over. So line up for Supersonic, Roll With It, Live Forever, Wonderwall, Cigarettes & Alcohol and Don’t Look Back In Anger as they dominate the two sides almost straight off.
All those songs are classics of the ’90s Britpop era, but moving on Oasis stopped proving itself and just became another band. D’You Know What I Mean, The Hindu Times and Lyla hold their own but in no way like the excellent songs of the younger, hungrier band.
Oasis – 15 years; two great albums and two brothers who no longer talk to each other. A shame, really.
BOB GORDON
***