Try Whistling This, Neil Finn (Parlophone)

Neil Finn, Try Whistling This (Work): Neil Finn enjoys a rather curious status in the music firmament. Casual music fans in the U.S. might not even recognize his name - although they would probably remember a couple of the songs off Crowded House, the self-titled debut of his old band. "Don't Dream It's Over," in particular, was a huge mid-'80s hit.

To more ardent fans of sophisticated pop, Finn is one of the enduring heroes. In the late '70s, he joined older brother Tim's band Split Enz and contributed such gems as "I Got You." Neil Finn went on to found Crowded House, one of the few great pop bands of the '80s. Although the Australian group failed to repeat the Top 40 success of its first album in the U.S., it remained a favorite at home and in the U.K. and always continued to evolve creatively. Even its flawed swan song, 1993's Together Alone, was a fascinating experiment. The 1996 compilation Recurring Dream: The Very Best of Crowded House makes a strong case for Finn as one of the most original pop songwriters of the decade.

After Crowded House split up, Neil and Tim released a terrific collaboration, 1996's The Finn. Neil Finn is only just now getting around to making his first album under his own name. Try Whistling This is in some ways a more successful sequel to Together Alone, a collaboration with trendy producer Youth, who helped cloak Crowded House's songs in dense, sometimes cluttered arrangements. The production on Try Whistling This is even denser, but Finn has taken care not to let the songs get lost in the layers of detail.

Finn produced Try Whistling with Marius DeVries (Nellee Hooper, Bjork) and with the mixing services and valuable advice of Tchad Blake, who helped out on The Finn and worked with Mitchell Froom on the early Crowded House albums. Finn played most of the instruments except drums, getting help on guitar from Midnight Oil's Jim Moginie. The arrangements represent a surprisingly seamless welding of sophisticated pop and edgy modernism, combining the warmth of acoustic instruments and old-fashioned electronic instruments with complex programming.

Of course, others in rock and pop have appropriated sampling technology from the dance world, but Finn uses it less obtrusively and more creatively than, say, Radiohead did on its OK Computer. (In fact, OK Computer producer Nigel Goodrich re-mixed two of the songs here, "Sinner" and "Twisty Bass," but you couldn't pick them out as his work.)

Finn seems to have conceived the songs and arrangements somewhat simultaneously. At any rate, the arrangements are more than decorative, and while the melodies could stand on their own, he seems to have had certain sounds and textures in mind when he wrote the songs. Bits of melody seem designed to draw you into nooks and crannies of the production, and in turn, unexpected passageways and trap doors in the arrangement suddenly afford a new perspective on melodies that follow tricky but elegant chord progressions. Finn's voice has a kind of unassuming beauty that makes all of this complexity seem perfectly normal.

"Truth," for instance, has a lovely, quiet opening - just the vocal, acoustic guitar and a rhythm track that sounds as if it were sampled off a static-y old radio. The pretty melody slips into a welter of countermelodies. A gentle little piano riff and arching guitar line intersect the vocal at dissonant angles. (The song is co-credited to Moginie.)

"Dream Date" does, indeed, have a dreamlike quality, with vibes, acoustic guitar, soft-edged funk-soul guitar and piano sort of floating above percussion and bass that speaks more of commuter trains and freeway interchanges than sky and clouds. "Addicted" is another dreamscape set to harsher rhythms. A church-basement piano, harplike acoustic guitar and an apparently synthesized horn gradually drift into what sounds like a jet engine's roar.

Finn's lyrics are more oblique than ever - and darker, filled with unsettling imagery. In "Souvenir," he sings: "Prison color blue/ it's a uniform of choice/ count yourself lucky that you don't write the software." In "Loose Tongue," he pleads: "Remember my loose tongue/ forget what I just said/ I'd crawl over broken glass/ if we could start again/ before our plans were made." It's never clear what exactly has happened, what has been said, or whether Finn is addressing a lover or a friend, but his remorse and fear are palpable.

The album title is taken from a song but is also probably an ironic commentary on the nature of the music. However, while the tunes aren't as hummable as others Finn has written, these are some of his most challenging and rewarding compositions to date.