Crowded House
Time On Earth
(released July 10, 2007 on ATO Records)

It’s funny how first impressions aren’t always lasting. I’m a huge Crowded House and Neil Finn fan, so I suppose my expectations were higher and perhaps more difficult to meet when I got my hands on this record. On first listen, I had to deem this album a “grower,” one that would, on repeated listens, start to come together for me as a listener and really become something I loved as much as the rest of the Crowded House catalog.

And grow it did. I changed my mind about some of the songs that didn’t capture my interest quite as much on first listen, and those that I loved immediately engrained themselves even more. Mr. Finn and his reconvened House cohorts Nick Seymour and Mark Hart, along with newly-tapped drummer Matt Sherrod, have crafted an album that deftly weaves pop sensibilities with a healthy dose of melancholy. Yes, it started out as a Neil Finn solo album, and at times that is evident (as some of the whimsy that marked past CH outings is missing – but that is ok). I don’t expect artists I admire to keep doing the same thing over and over again. And one must remember that Crowded House was largely propelled, on the songwriting front, by Neil Finn’s craft anyway, and this album seems to be a logical progression from his solo work.

Immediate stunner “Nobody Wants To,” a song of mourning and perhaps even regret, opens the disc. In fact much of the album, as the title tellingly alludes, deals with the topics of loss, change, the passing of time and mortality, but it’s cloaked in sometimes upbeat music that often belies the topics at hand. It’s hard to imagine that the loss of former band drummer, Paul Hester (to a suicide several years ago), wasn’t factoring into a number of songs written for this record. The album isn’t a downer, though, by any stretch of the imagination, as witnessed by the sing-along bounce of “She Called Up,” the strummy shimmer of “Even A Child,” or even the subtle pep of the first single “Don’t Stop Now.”

Where the album truly shines for me, though, are some of the less sunny, more desolate moments: the elegiac “Pour Le Monde;” the dark funk of “Heaven That I’m Making” and “Walked Her Way Down;” the gorgeously-orchestrated, sad-yet-hopeful “People Are Like Suns;” and the reassuring lament of “Silent House” (co-written by Finn and the Dixie Chicks), which sports a dirty guitar tone throughout and jam at the end that would make Daniel Lanois smile. It’s when the sadness and melancholy, so evident in many of the lyrics, are manifested in the music that this incarnation of Crowded House creates aural manna.

Highly recommended... but give it time to grow. It's worth it.