Runaway hits on the self-titled Crowded House debut are, with the benefit of hindsight, no surprise. One hit an album should be the usual run for pop groups and Crowded House did not disappoint. Weather With You is enough to hook you in like an artist being yanked off stage with a comically large shepherd’s staff, but Woodface is, like Crowded House with Don’t Dream It’s Over, more than the sum of its hitmaker potential. Light pieces of what should be filler strike through as great examples of jangle pop with a heart beating right throughout it. Chocolate Cake should not be as rewarding a listen as it is yet here, we are. Woodface puts us in our place. Move along through the likes of It’s Only Natural and the obvious hit of the bunch, Weather With You, and hear it all for yourself.
This is a mixture of Finn Brothers recordings and tinges of Split Enz too. Woodface in turn becomes a melting pot of three different creative outlets for Finn, leading to both his sincerest yet broadest material to date. Some pieces like Tall Trees take their time to warm up but when they find their instrumental curve, they are real highlights for the 1991 effort. The bulk of the album is quality of real and intense joy – a punchy set of pop songs with jangle influence roaming around, looking for a place to lay its head. As sudden an end as Tall Trees is, the guitar direction from that to Weather With You is a masterclass. Those stilted ends leading into those stormy weather conditions are as great a joy now as they were way back when. This is the quality Finn and company so steadily provide – a sincere tap-in of the times and a reflective tone which guides listeners through those tumultuous times.
There Goes God captures this to some degree. A pang of fear overwhelms the band as the Almighty abandons them to their twee pop ways. At least it sounds great, and paired with All I Ask is a palette cleanser for the stress of a long day. We toil away with weighty expectations of ourselves, burning holes in lighter bank balances and all we can do is cling to the merry-go-round. At least when paired with All I Ask, a Paul McCartney-like charmer which puts Finn up there with the great lyricists of the time, life feels good. Sin-like happiness flows through As Sure As I Am and a major part of Woodface makes itself apparent – this feeling of completeness and sincere positivity is viewed not as a triumph but as a reason to stay alert. Their fears of fulfilment are carried over from track to track.
Be the refreshing start to a new day, as Italian Plastic hopes its audience to maintain some positive impact on those around them in intimate settings. Whether we can or not is not the point it is the action which Finn and the band focus on, with the slick guitar work punching through a calmer, classy sound. Woodface quietly simmers away as one of the more reliable pop albums of the 1990s, no small feat considering the talented indie rock which would break through in the UK and the steadier, heavier tones of rock-making waves in the USA. Crowded House had it stacked up against them. Making a splash in the murky waters of is backed well by the likes of She Goes On and another single to pair with their inevitable gig closer. Woodface is a well-intentioned slice of great quality.
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