KEY POINTS:
Misery might love company. But if the tragic death of Paul Hester is what initially helped draw fellow Crowded House founders Neil Finn and Nick Seymour back together in the studio - joined eventually by latter-day guitarist-keyboardist Mark Hart - for what was originally to be Finn's third post-band solo effort, then the result album isn't about to wallow in gloom in any obvious way.
Yes, there is much minor key melancholy to the 14 tracks and as suggested by that album title, contemplation of mortality.
That's whether it's the talk of mourning in English Trees, telling of being delivered sad news in the curiously upbeat She Called Up or the religious imagery that crops up in the single Don't Stop Now or more heavily in Heaven That I'm Making.
Much of Time on Earth is in familiar Crowded House territory.
That's apart from Transit Lounge which, with its samples of a sultry German airport announcer and some Pink Floyd-ish guest female wailing, ends up sounding like an extract from U2's unloved Zooropa period. Otherwise it's largely a Crowded House album built along the band's own classic lines.
Mood-wise, for a group which has always had an ear out for the weather, it sounds like it's caught between a Californian summer and an English autumn - and it has its own wintry grip at the end with a particularly dreamy forlorn run of ballads - You Are The One to Make Me Cry, the eerie A Sigh, People Are Like Suns - which is where this most sounds like the Finn-alone album it started out as.
Predictably, there are strong echoes of the band's bygone days. There's breezy pop-rock of the Something So Strong ilk, there's baroque, piano-led numbers of the Four Seasons in One Day model (recalling those perennial Beatles comparisons), and a couple of epic numbers echoing the band's grander works like Hole in the River from their debut album, or the expansive atmospheres from their last and best studio album, Together Alone.
Fortunately, the songs don't sound pegged to that previous heyday, except perhaps for the upbeat falsetto-chorused light-hearted 80s-ish Even a Child which, like first single Don't Stop Now, features the co-writing and guitar talents of musical mate, ex-Smith and now Modest Mouseketeer Johnny Marr.
Finn and co don't mind flexing those rock muscles occasionally, either. That's particularly on midway highlight Silent House, a song Finn originally wrote with the Dixie Chicks and which appeared on their 2006 album Take the Long Way Home.
Here, it becomes a slow-throbbing eruption of guitars which veer from low twanging riffs to psychedelic territory. A musical relation of the Finn brothers' Suffer Never, it's one new song that should add fresh thrust to the live set on the band's upcoming tour.
There's similar levels of guitar voltage in Walked Her Way Down.
But while there's an impressive energy to the set, the most memorable songs with the most indelible tunes become the slower numbers whether it's the opening Nobody Wants To, the grand sweep of Pour Le Monde with its stately piano and strings, English Trees with its contemplation of one season in one day, or the closing People Are Like Suns which with its spartan start recalling Split Enz's I Hope I Never slowly turns into the album's final burst of fireworks.
Compared to Finn's intervening solo albums, Time on Earth feels brighter and bolder - the hooks more pronounced, the often interesting wonkiness of those previous sets put aside for something which reaches to the back rows.
It would be wrong to say it feels like Crowded House has never been away.
The album lacks the cohesiveness and economy which made Woodface and Together Alone such great lasting pop records.
Still, fans of those will find plenty to love here too. And Time On Earth will still stand as one of the best things to come out of this year of endless rock resurrections.
Label: Parlophone
Verdict: Finn's old firm makes reunion well worth attending
