Crowded House: Woodface

Many's the admirer of Crowded House's last album, Temple Of Low Men, who has scanned the skies anxiously for signs of a follow-up from the Australian-based band. Three years on the wait is over, and Woodface's 14 songs comfortably match the beguiling pop/rock beauty of its forerunner. The trio, led by chief songwriter Neil Finn, has now added Neil Finn's brother Tim Finn (they were last together in the New Zealand art-rockers Split Enz), and the siblings' gifts for tunesmithery seem as seamlessly compatible as their creamy vocal harmony. Crowded House's virtues lie with what is so often called the classic pop song-the kind of writing that can claim descent from John Lennon and Paul McCartney's work in the late '60s intricately layered melody, bittersweet and wistful, like Four Seasons In One Day, or sardonic, such as the current single Chocolate Cake. These songs, you feel, have come to stay.