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Taken from RETROPOP (May 29, 2024)
Crowded House - Gravity Stairs
Released: May 31
Rated: 4/5
With their eighth album, 'Gravity Stairs', Crowded House get introspective on a body of work that taps into questions of life and death and frontman Neil Finn faces up to his mortality.
by Connor Gotto
Crowded House - Gravity Stairs coverart |
The first LP from the group in three years sees Finn, Nick Seymour, Mitchell Froom, and Finn's sons Elroy and Liam deliver a sharp, adventurous body of work that speaks to their continued creativity and knack for crafting classic, timeless hits.
Centred on a curious title - "It's a metaphor for getting a little older and becoming aware of your own mortality, your own physicality," Finn says. "Things are getting a little harder, and there's more determination needed to get to the top, but there's still the same compulsion to climb them." - much of the subject matter in the lyrics sees the frontman, now in his mid-60s, confronting various aspects of everyday living.
Opener Magic Piano sets itself apart from anything the band has created prior, reading as a love letter to music and a demonstration of its endless possibilities that unfurls across the recording.
Life's Imitation stacks harmonies over a narrative dreamed up at the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic, while navigating the need for personal connection at the height of isolation, while All That I Can Ever Own questions the ties we create with material goods and reaches a jubilant conclusion that, ultimately, there are things in life we can't control.
Lead single Oh Hi is among the more commercial, radio-friendly offerings on 'Gravity Stairs', with follow-up single, Teenage Summer, another crowd-pleaser that the group tested out in earlier live shows.
One of the most personal cuts, Some Greater Plan (For Claire), draws on Finn's father's war diaries and the memory of a whirlwind Mediterranean romance, while closing number, Night Song, looks outwards and builds around the backdrop of an audio recording from his hotel room at 3am, featuring an uncredited man's unfiltered ramblings from the street below.
Close to four decades into their career, Crowded House could comfortably rest on the laurels of the past, but instead they continue to push themselves creatively and, in doing so, deliver some of their finest work to date.
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