Customer Reviews

See Ya' Round

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What should have been a farewell album as uneventful as "Conflicting Emotions," instead evolved into a joyous musical journey that causes the listener to be surprised that the Enz broke up after this endeavour. Tim Finn's exit seems to have spurred the remaining Enzes into a freewheeling, yet well-crafted group of songs.

Of course, Neil Finn is the standout here. "Breakin' My Back" is a great intro, with a heckuva musical hook, and the version of "I Walk Away" that follows is much better than even the one of the first Crowded House album. Eddie Rayner's "The Lost Cat" is the best instrumental he ever contributed, and Nigel Griggs' "Adz" makes you wish he had written a few more songs during his tenure with the band.

I can't recommend this CD enough. Who would have ever thought that Split Enz without Tim Finn could be so dynamic? I sure didn't. It seems Tim's leaving freed the Enz up... sort of a shame that this did not signal a new era for Split Enz. But, boy, what a helluva swan song.

If you've ever enjoyed a Split Enz or Crowded House song, you need this disc. The final album release - at least of the band's "original era" - was not released in the U.S. at all. This at a time when founding member Tim Finn had left for his solo career, leaving younger brother Neil to be the band's main voice and songwriter. At the time this was recorded, Neil had enough songs for an EP, but not an entire album. Those 6 songs are here - Breakin' My Back, I Walk Away (good enough to also show up on the first Crowded House album in a slower tempo), Doctor Love, One Mouth is Fed, and Years Go By. Another Neil Finn tune, Kia Kaha, featuring a nice Maori strum and some presumably Maori chanting, is charming and appears later in the album.

Rounding out the effort are tunes by the other band members. Eddie Rayner's The Lost Cat is a fine instrumental, and has very nice stereo effects. Adz is the song by bassist Nigel Griggs (a song about ads, actually) and we find he has a great voice and wonder if he shouldn't have sung lead once in a while on previous albums. This is Massive is drummer Paul Hester's song, and it fits pleasantly in with the feel of the album. The final song is Noel Crombie's Ninnie Knees Up, and like his art and costumes of the early years, is just plainly odd and perplexing, it has no place here and nearly ruins what was a darn good album. (Sorry Noel. I do like your percussion work and vocal backing elsewhere.) Fortunately in the CD world, you don't have to play it, because the rest of the album is definitely worth your investment. Out of the 11 songs, 10 are gems in the vein of prior Enz albums - great writing and fabulous sounds. This is a good one to turn way up and really listen to. Though it's sometimes unavailable alone, it is supposed to be part of the Enz to Enz set. The DVD "Split Enz" available in the U.S. as an import, has a terrific video of the band doing I Walk Away. A re-release of the album in 2006 is said to have an added Tim Finn song.

In this last album, The end of the "Enz" is a major theme throughout the album. Without, his brother Tim on this album, Neil begins to experiment with sounds, styles and lyrics, sometimes with success or times not. What is noticeable is the underlying "Crowded House" direction that is starting to evolve. Also, worth the buy is the song "I Walk Away", which is found re-done on 1986's "Crowded House". Here you get the wonderful Split Enz stamp to it.

The first five songs are decent Neil Finn tunes, the rest are filler mainly written by the others members of the band. The first five songs get 5 stars, the rest 1 star so it evens out to 3 stars.