One Nil

The advertising campaign for Crowded House’s final Best Of… album a few years back ran something along the lines of it was surprising how many of their songs you knew without realising it. Neil Finn’s solo career has done little to dispel this ‘unsung hero of rock’ tag, delighting the faithful but not exactly making massive inroads into new audiences. One Nil attempts to remedy this with a degree of sonic tinkering – helped by the presence of Wendy & Lisa – that is only partly successful. For much of the album Finn’s considerable muse seems to have deserted him somewhat, the greater the style the less the content.

Unsurprisingly, but probably frustratingly for the man himself, he’s at his best penning simple, acoustic based pop songs such as ‘Last To Know’ and ‘Wherever You Are’. One Nil has it’s fair share of gems, seemingly informed by Finn’s overwhelming contentment with life in general (‘Rest Of The Day’ just glows) and love for his wife in particular. Not especially cool but quite lovely all the same. Which brings us back to our original conundrum: there’s nothing here that will set the world alight or slip into the public consciousness in the way he achieved with ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ or ‘Weather With You’.

A perfectly pleasant Neil Finn album, no more, no less.