Crowded House have surprised me with their latest release Intriguer. Without a doubt this is sonically the best album they have given us this century.

Neil Finn seems inspired and his singing and harmonies with Mick Hart and Nick Seymour are angelic. Either Side Of The World and Isolation show off the keyboards and psychedelic sounds of our favourite sons and Matt Sherrod keeps it all rolling.

Twice If You’re Lucky is a beautiful love song that is filled with optimism and hearfelt emotion. The many lives of Crowded House that we have witnessed for 25 years just seem to roll into one, except now we have Neil with that questionable mustache, and of course, only a very fond memory of that monkey Paul Hester.

Studio magic can only do so much; Intriguer, produced by the band and Jim Scott (engineer and producer for Wilco and Tom Petty to name a couple) displays Crowded House as a unit.What you hear within these gorgeous pieces of music is a band that is on fire again and digging what they do. Their records are one piece of this tapestry, but make sure you go see them live when they get back to touring. Everything will be honed to perfection for these sacred songs that are on display here.

They are on top of their game here on record and some of these songs, which were first aired during the band’s shows in April, are even better when played to the faithful. Just give this album a year or so and we will be singing along like we do with their earlier hits.