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The bittersweet melodies, familiar yearning vocal, resonant Beatlesque grooves, and clear eyed lyrics -- it must be Crowded House!

Who doesn't remember Crowded House's massive ‘late 80s hit, "Don't Dream It's Over"? Well, chances are -- a lot of you! A swirling, John Lennon-stumbles-over-Macca dream of epic soundtrack proportions, "Don't Dream It's Over" was an oddity of miraculous melody heaving a soulful sigh in the face of grunge, the song  all the more poignant for its message of eternal hope in the midst of global paralysis.  The world and its problems can you weigh you down, the song advised, but brother, keep the faith.

The original Crowded House - tunesmith Neil Finn, bassist Nick Seymour and drummer Paul Hester  -- rode high for a clutch of popular albums and singles, then officially disbanded (after numerous earlier breakups) in 1996 as their considerable Australian and European fame ran its arc. The band members went their various ways, recording solo albums and the like. Neil recorded two excellent albums with brother Tim: Finn and Everyone Is Here. Then Paul Hester's suicide in 2005 seemed to nail the coffin shut on Crowded House for good. But after a flurry of rumors, the original trio (with new drummer Matt Sherrod) returns with Time On Earth, the album confirming everything great about this New Zealand born pop powerhouse.

Along with former member Mark Hart, the revitalized Crowded House sounds in some ways much stronger than the CW 1.0. Finn's urgent vocals and powerful melodies still lead the band through what is often a world of dark and emotional turmoil (this was never a shiny happy band, pop fantastic or not), the album filled to the brim with stirring melodies and singalong vocal hooks. Crowded House sounds tighter and more committed than ever, confirming that age sometimes has its rewards. If Time On Earth doesn't establish Neil Finn, once and for all, as one of the world's greatest and most enduring pop songwriters, you can trade in all your old MP3s.

Opener "Nobody Wants To" is grandly Lennon-like in its sense of dreamy resignation coupled to an open, freedom filled chorus that is equally sweet and melancholic - the Neil Finn trademark. First single, "Don't Stop Now," co-written and featuring guitarist Johnny Marr, builds with a thrumming beat and earnest harmonies that intuit some clandestine escape from reality under a comforting cover of darkness.  "She Called Up" is pure sunny morning reverie, a rock and roll shouter that demands foot stomping agreement. The stunners roll out, misty eyed and memorable: the pensively determined "Say That Again," the "I Should Have Known Better" cadence of "Even A Child," the blue electric piano funk of "This Heaven I'm Making," the evocative (if bitterly designed) "English Trees."  Occasional and perhaps one two many darkly introspective songs threaten to weigh down the album, but Finn's gift keeps Time On Earth fully afloat. See http://www.crowdedhouse.com/.

Keep on Coming: Though she looks pretty ordinary, like a thousand hardscrabble folk singers in a million smelly bars scattered from coast to coast, London by way of Boston's Eileen Rose is someone altogether different. Going against the tide of tarted up, know nothing 20-something females intent on spreading ignorance like the plague, Rose sings "I've got a good book and a bottle and I'm staying in," and damn, if you don't want to join her. Rose's third album, Come The Storm, is full of slow boil, simmering roots rockers that sound like Chrissie Hynde, Nico and Lucinda Williams closing the bar and raising the roof. Rose sings with the voice of experience, of hard won independence, of lessons learned and plenty of men cornered, conquered and perhaps discarded along the way. Not many albums could survive a menu of mostly medium tempo and slower songs about lost dreams and the mean streets of life, but Come The Storm is that rare work that slows you to its pace, bends you to its message. Rose is a dramatic singer and songwriter with reserves of power, whether plonking mechanical piano notes over a marching snare cadence in "Compass," getting all honky tonk in the rockabilly freedom call, "White Wave," or rocking the house clean in the blissful "Last New Year's Eve." Rose captivates. Though tortured, or at least determinedly introspective, seems her natural state, changing personas comes easily as well. "Never Be The Same" cries out for country rock chart topping status, the majestically drunken "Stagger Home" trips the groove fantastic as easily as sleeping off a hangover. Through it all, whether she's weeping for the past or worshipping a call to arms, Rose's gorgeously sexy, throaty, rough, ready, Edith Piaf-meets-Cobain howl is sublime stuff.  See http://www.eileenrose.com/.