Afterglow

When New Zealand's Split Enz broke up in 1985, the Finn brothers took decidedly different paths. Elder brother Tim married actress Greta Scacchi while going the solo route while Neil founded The Mullanes, who eventually became Crowded House. Following its wildly successful 1986 debut, this Kiwi threesome squeezed out nearly a decade's worth of smart guitar pop reminiscent of The Beatles, the Kinks, and Squeeze before calling it quits in 1996.

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When New Zealand's Split Enz broke up in 1985, the Finn brothers took decidedly different paths. Elder brother Tim married actress Greta Scacchi while going the solo route while Neil founded The Mullanes, who eventually became Crowded House. Following its wildly successful 1986 debut, this Kiwi threesome squeezed out nearly a decade's worth of smart guitar pop reminiscent of The Beatles, the Kinks, and Squeeze before calling it quits in 1996.
This compilation of 13 refurbished and/or remastered tracks consists of stray B-sides and half an album's worth of unreleased songs originally recorded for 1991's WOODFACE. Early tracks include "Recurring Dream", a chiming, pre-Crowded House number, and the wah-wah guitar-soaked "Left Hand", a loose workout spiked by some rollicking piano. Neil Finn's hand firmly steers the band's creative tiller through seas of love and pathos with inspiration ranging from his wife (the melodically rich "I Love You Dawn"), to his dog (a poignant demo of "Lester"). The only non-Finn song is drummer Paul Hester's zany, TV-obsessed "My Telly's Gone Bung". "Help Is Coming", an impressive slice of dream-pop from the band's last demo session, provides the perfect epilogue for this collection of melodic manna.

Q (3/00, p.118)
- 3 stars out of 5 - "...a reminder that [they] were more than the sum of their parts....it's [Neil] Finn's songs that stick in the memory, but it was the playing and arrangements that enabled those songs to soar....they were built to last."