Neil Finn

Blessed with an instantly recognizable voice that transcends its pleasant timbre with an insinuating dark irony, former Crowded House landlord Neil Finn is an equally inspired writer of impressionistic lyrics, specializing in love, insanity and death. There's plenty of each on One All, the stateside version of Finn's 2000 Aussie release One Nil, which seamlessly replaces two just-fair cuts with stronger songs recorded late last year. But if any conceit sews together Finn's patchwork of fatalism and romance this time, it's sleep -- which is appropriate for an album that initially can't shake off a thick languor but eventually rewards scrutiny the way a powerful dream encourages a few more minutes of slumber.

At the heart of the now-improved One All is "Lullaby Requiem," the first of the two substitute songs. A gentle waltz over which a children's choir hovers, the song's sentiments (Goodnight, bless you ... You know how I'll miss you/In quiet moments I'll come undone) and bittersweet sway suggest a note from a troubled Peter Pan about to abandon the Lost Boys. Like the best of Finn's songs, it's more haunting than reassuring, a warning that the sleep longed for in "Driving Me Mad," "Wherever You Are" and "Human Kindness" comes with a price -- if it comes at all.

A less dreamy deja vu undercuts One All, though. Finn is the rare songwriter who has repeatedly visited pet themes (infidelity, hallucination and -- did we mention? -- death) without becoming coated by telltale loose fur. But since Crowded House's last full-length, 1993's brilliant Together Alone, Finn has focused almost exclusively on music that in tempo, guitar sound and even melody rehashes either Alone's stately plaints or its fuzzed-out rockers. (Finn is still least convincing loud, as on the All shouter "Hole in the Ice.") Even sheltered from the relative lyrical sunshine of House songs such as "Weather With You" and "Something So Strong," Finn seems unwilling to venture again into brighter music and bouncier melodies. The limitation makes Finn's album sound more repetitive and self-cannibalizing than it is, a liability remedied best by listening to the disc song by song rather than straight through. Finn's songwriting might be above such clichés, but that doesn't mean One All isn't somehow less than the sum of its compelling parts.