posted 10-25-2002 06:37 PM               

Neil Finn's first foray into film scoring is an interesting mix of new songs and moody instrumental pieces. The songs and score tracks alternate for much of the CD, dividing things up nicely and creating quite a tapestry of different moods. "You Don't Know" kicks things off with a dark, slinky feel and some outstanding vocal harmonies (not unlike the underrated Finn Brothers album), which brings me neatly to one other point - a lot of the vocal numbers on this soundtrack are almost "mini-songs," very short in duration and sparse on lyrics (check out "Boat Joyride", barely a minute long). "Summer Intro" quotes an infectious melody that later forms the basis of the song "Drive Home", followed by "Summer Of Love", a Finn/Edmund McWilliams collaboration on a song written by McWilliams. Again, vocal harmonies are to the fore. Elsewhere on the album, standouts include Lisa Germano's eerie "Cry Wolf" and her violin-driven instrumental "Phantom Love", the eastern-influenced Finn instrumental "Red Room", and another Finn/McWilliams collaboration, "Drive Home", which is an instrumental for the first half of the song before the vocals ever kick in. Rounding things off is Neil's son Liam Finn (of Betchadupa as well as his dad's touring act) with "Lucid Dream", an instrumental version of a song from the new Betchadupa album Alphabetchadupa. Perhaps the most out-of-place item here is a 1970 number from Human Instinct, a very, very Move-like late 60s/early 70s New Zealand rock group. In a way, it's out of place for being the oldest song on the CD, but with the lo-fi production utilized on much of the soundtrack, it also fits in quite nicely, ironically enough.

It's important to point out that, unlike film or stage music by, oh, say, Peter Gabriel, the soundtrack from Rain is not a wasteland of previously-released material minus the vocals. Liam's singular contribution aside, Neil Finn's material is all-original here. The only thing it references is other tracks on this album - and last time I checked, that's called a theme, something which comes in mighty handy when you're doing music for a movie or a TV show.

Overall, it's quite an effective freshman film music outing, one that makes me hope Neil Finn might try this again sometime - just so long as he keeps turning out his own music as well instead of, oh, say, spacing solo albums ten years apart from each other.