Crowded House, James, Billy F. Gibbons: New album reviews

The Finn quotient of Crowded House just reached an all-time high, but is the house too crowded? PLUS James and Billy F. Gibbons.

Crowded House (from left) Nick Seymour, Elroy Finn, Mitchell Froom, Neil Finn and Liam Finn. Picture: Kerry Brown

This week’s album reviews from The Courier-Mail (ratings out of five stars):

ROCK

Crowded House, Dreamers Are Waiting

(EMI) ****

This is not your father’s Crowded House. It is, however, Liam and Elroy Finn’s father’s, and the next generation triples the Finn factor in the latest incarnation. Finn Snr might have multiple projects on the go at any one time, but from the lilting opening strains of Bad Times Good, it’s clear we’re firmly back in Crowded House territory. There are the playful harmonies and sublime guitar outro of the jaunty To the Island, while Sweettooth is similarly infectious. The Trump phenomenon compelled Finn to make a rare foray into politics with Whatever You Want, which has shades of his Seven Worlds Collide project. Meanwhile, Real Life Woman is an ode to his Fleetwood Mac bandmate Stevie Nicks. The album is front-loaded with the most accessible tunes, the others promise to reveal themselves with time.

ALTERNATIVE

James, All the Colours of You

(Virgin) ***1/2

James’s 2018 album was called Living in Extraordinary Times. Turns out they hadn’t seen nuthin’ yet. As such the follow-up is informed not only by peak Trumpdom but the global pandemic. The band may be Britpop at heart, but liberal use of synth often places them in similar territory to New Order or latter-day Coldplay, as heard on the title track – a view of Trump’s “disunited States” from lockdown – and the exuberant Beautiful Beaches, which celebrates finally getting out of Dodge or Kansas. Recover more directly addresses the pandemic – “Stay inside, stay alive/It will be all right” – and mourns the father-in-law frontman Tim Booth lost to the virus. Miss America, meanwhile, is a poignant ode to all that is great and grotesque about the land of the free, while Wherever It Takes Us juxtaposes a dramatic spoken-word narrative with a hopeful, anthemic chorus.

ROCK

Billy F. Gibbons, Hardware

(Concord) ***

“I am what I am and it is what it is,” confesses Billy F. Gibbons – better known without the F and with two Zs – on his third solo album. And maybe it’s not so politically correct, but songs from Trump’s heartland about girls and cars can be a welcome respite from the complex chaos of the world. The studio location in the high desert outside LA seeps through on to the record: See Stackin’ Bones and, of course, the spoken-word Desert High. There are pulsating rockers for peeling down the interstate (She’s on Fire, West Coast Junkie) along with motoring metaphors (I Was a Highway). The traditional blues rhythm of Shuffle Step Slide is in the ilk of Baby What You Want Me To Do, while resident ballad Vagabond Man is Gibbons at his most personal. S-G-L-M-B-B-R is a distant descendant of Sharp Dressed Man, and Gibbons also covers Texas Tornadoes’ Hey Baby, Que Paso. Plus it’s pleasing to see the trademark Ford Eliminator make another outing on the cover.