Crowded House take you on a journey in this album; through classic rocking songs, to beautiful lilting classics. but ocassionally you find yourself quadmired in the poorer aspects of an otherwise brilliant album.

Weaker points of this album include 'Chocolate Cake' - an odd mix of strange harmony and instrumentation, 'Italian Plastic' - a boring, slow, dirge-like song, and 'All I Ask', with meaningful lyrics but ultimately unfufilling.

Having said that, the remaining trakcs are singable, pleasant, and will stay in your mind irritatingly throughout the day! A very good album, if the poor aspects can be overlooked.

Watch out for the bonus track as well 'Still Here'

Even above their wonderful debut, this is my favorite Crowded House CD. It's probably because Neil and Tim Finn reunited long enough to work their brotherly chemistry for a batch of melodic, hook laden songs. Unfortunately, the image of goofy nonsense that the first album's hits and videos cultivated remained as one Crowded House couldn't shake, and despite such obvious charmers as "Weather With You" or "Four Seasons in One Day," chart success again eluded them. That's a darn shame, because the band's assimilated influences of Byrds and Beatles were at their peak on "Woodface." There was even a lethal double-dose of humor in the American Vs England "Chocolate Cake" (these guys were New Zealanders, remember), and the thinly disguised swipe at Hollywood in "There Goes God."

Anyone who got to see Crowded House on tour during this period also got a magical show. I was fortunate enough to catch them on a night that Roger McGuinn came out for an encore of "Mr Tambourine Man" and "Eight Miles High." (If you can snatch a copy of the "Byrdhouse" EP, it's worth it.) Tim again left for solo ground after this, and took that little extra sparkle with him. But for the duration of "Woodface," the four cornered Crowded House managed to spin some of the lost magic of their Split Enz days.

With the Finn brothers together again, the group made their best record.

Unfortunately, their hopes of becoming a hit in the U.S.A. went unrealized as they received the same poor support from Capitol Records that had doomed their sales for the earlier two ventures. Additionally, they had included, as the first track, "Chocolate Cake," that described (quite accurately, I think) the U.S. as a materialistic behemoth on a sugar binge--in the arts, in our diet and, generally, in the way we consume everything in sight; consumption as a life and national goal. The unsophisticated mass market neither understood nor appreciated this message. Those who might have bought the album in spite of, or because of that number never heard it or heard of it. Soon, the Finns went to record their own album and Crowded House was no more.

BUT...this is a GREAT ALBUM with TERRIFIC SONGS; if you haven't heard it, do so--you might just like it as much as I!