SEE YA 'ROUND

NEW WAVE PROG-RELATED PROTO NEO PROG. Bye bye Tim, well at least until a year later when he joined Enz for a farewell tour.Orginally planned to be an EP with just the songs from side 1, the rest of the band decided to contribute a side two with another Neil Finn song, More than half of this album are Neil Finn songs the rest every member having their own song including for the first time a Noel Crombie piece (Ninnie knees up) very silly and very proggy percussion driven instrumental but I don't think its that great but it still fits in as an Enz song and was quite good live, and a Nigel Griggs piece Adz which merges with Eddie's track before it which isquite good and sounds very proggy. Again the songwrinting by Neil Finn is of high quality, but I can honestly say their is very little to appeal to a prog fan except for the usual Eddie Raynor song - Lost Cat which could quite comfortably fit on Brian Eno's Another Green World. I think overall thought the band suffers without Tim, whom had jump shiop for a solo career. According to Neil Finn this album was a disgruntled effort by the boys to prove to Tim Enz could carry on without Tim (because they were quite irritated by Tim leaving, but nothing really serious mind you after all Tim and Neil are brothers), so wisely the guys called it a day after this album and went on a final farewell tour. I quite like I Walk Away but only 10% of it would be considered prog (the weird violin and Neil's dark cry) One mouth to fed is a great piece it reminds me at places of the song Half Past One on the Can album Landed, Years go by is also prog pop I can't stand the Paul Hester song This is Massive, Hester (whom you may of heard of in Neil's band Crowded House) had only joined Enz just after Conflicting Emotions and so the song really has no place on this album, Hester was not around in the proggy days like the other guys and it really shows on that song, it fits on this album like a Noel Redding song on a Hendrix album, its Aussie rock song (after al lthe late Paul Hester was an Australian) so it fits more on an Aussie rock album like Inxs or Chisel.I can't believe the sticker on the remaster had this song with I Walk Away on the sticker infront of the album. Only fans of Aussie rock will like that stupid song. Kia Kaha (Maori for "be strong"-...I think) is a great song complete with a haka (kind of a war chart and dance - anyone familiar with the All Blacks rugby team will know what I mean) and ranks with Neils better songs, and it ends with the aforementioned Noel Crombie piece Ninnie Knees Up. Their is a bonus track on the remaster Last Exit recorded as a single with a dreadful music video (fortunately not on their DVD) while Tim was in the band between Tim and Tide and Conflicting Emotions perhaps the worst song Tim has ever written, it does not really help with rating this album. I feel their are songs worth investigating for the Enz fan, and I do think this is superior to Conflicting Emotions. But as I said I think it was sensible to wind the band down after this album,Tim was crucial to Enz, so Neil decied to pursue a new idea, which became Crowded House, which got the song on their debut album "Don't Drewam its Over" at number two hit on the U.S. charts, which is kind of ironic since all those years Enz had worked hard with very little success to penertrate the US market (only a small cult following) and then Neil forms his own band a yearafter Enz farewell tour later and gets two top twenty songs on the charts. An ok album superior to Conflicting Emotions by the fact its more focussed and more proggy and Neil is still very much inspired in his songwriting, some good tracks and some duds but I don't think its for everyone so I think a 2.5 good but not essential while at the same time only appealing to fans, I know that is a contradiction but wavering between the two. I know some people may very well like this album a lot while others will have no time for it. 2.5 but is it really a four?....

After the little inviting "Conflicting Emotions" was is possible for the band to get back to some more inventive and fine music? I guess not, unfortunately. "See 'Ya Round" is a combination of dull pop songs with little to no passion.

Disco beats like during "I Walk Away" or "Doctor Love" are tracks that are best to be avoided. Typical of the eighties, even if it was not easy for bands to succeed in their reconversion.

This album is just a succession of boring numbers, sounding almost all of the same stuff. But is this a surprise? I don't think so. The band reached his creative peak with their debut and consolidated until "Frenzy" in 79. After this album, the descent from below average ("True Colors", "Time & Tide") to poor ("Conflicting Emotions") was well on its way.

What we have here is a pitiful work. Even if lots of bands have had their ups and down, there is no question of ups in here. Only the downs are to be considered. And the Palme d'Or definitely goes to "One Mouth Is Fed". Press next.

Unfortunately, none of the songs presented here is captivating. Just a waste of time, really. For your own sake, you shouldn't bother with this album. The closing "Ninnie Knees Up" being the poorest one of all songs. But at this time, it is not possible to press next, or you would be brought back to the opening number, which, I'm sure, you would like to avoid.

Sad for a great band like SPLIT ENZ to finish with such a lemon, but finish with a lemon they did. Having started their career with an engaging blend of art rock and vaudeville, they added punk to their palette in the late 70s, and became one of the most memorable new wave bands in the early 1980s, with 'True Colours' and 'Time and Tide' matching the best of the movement. By 1984, however, they had shed everything but blandness, including their charismatic leader, TIM FINN. Younger brother NEIL helmed the band during this, its dying gasp, and was already thinking about his next project. Thus he had only five tracks ready for this release - but instead of doing the decent thing and retiring gracefully, the band added what they called 'experimental' (read: half-finished) numbers to make up the balance. No vestige of their art-rock origins remain: this is sixth-rate tunes dressed up to the nines in hurricane-force overproduction. Doesn't matter how much perfume you douse this stuff in, it still smells.

See Ya Round Enz, like a Lost Cat!

Split Enz were searching for a new sound in the mid 80s to end their career. They found their sound: a cat being run over by a lawnmower! Tim Finn got out while the going was good and the band still had a top 10 hit with Message To My Girl. As Tim sailed away into the sunset to pursue a dogged solo career, the great NZ/Aus band were left to stumble their careers into the studio to appease the record label; the result is a lackluster effort that had no singles worthy of serious marketing and a totally manufactured sound that was the worst of the mid 80s."See Ya Round" was a self prophecying farewell album and was a shocking way to go out. After the disappointing "Conflicting Emotions" this followup is so bad that compilations usually tend to ignore it as if it didn't exist and for good reason.

What went wrong?

The Enz transformed over the years from colourful costumed mannequins on acid to clean cut ladie's magnets. The pop 80s were inundated by Split Enz on the charts and we Australians heard ad infinitum the likes of I Got You and 6 Months on a Leaky Boat as a daily diet. Then they tended to fizzle out on subsequent albums following "Time and Tide".

First there was a very mediocre effort with "Conflicting Emotions" but this was followed up by the worst the Enz produced; "See Ya Round". The cheesy album cover with the band member's faces peeking out of silly cardboard characterisations was supposed to be pop art, instead it just comes across as poop art; flaccid unamusing drawings with an equally lifeless song list.

Is there anything salvageable?

I Walk Away was an attempt at a single and failed. Doctor Love has a catchy tune if you can get past the lyrics. One Mouth is Fed is a boring dance tune that was a live favourite of sorts. Lost Cat was a proggy instrumental with atmospheric cat sounds on the synth (best track on the whole dang album!). This track genuinely sounds like a cat stalking with weird bizarre synth effects and ascending bassline, one of the best instrumentals I have heard.

That's about it really. One intriguing instrumental and 10 manufactured pop slop throwaways. It is seriously devoid of inspiration and is not a cohesive work, rather sounds as though it were recorded in separate booths by each musician, and even then they sound as if they are bored with it. She's a must to avoid.

For starters, I was quite surprised to find Split Enz in Progarchives, but I must admit their early efforts can squeeze their way into the wide and diffuse limits established for "prog" on this website.

Secondly, I was intrigued by the low rating the album has garnered, so I have just listened to it and checking the rating system, I must agree this is NOT a record that is necessary in a prog rock collection, that's why I also give it 2 stars.

Ah, but alas, the record is quite good, but not from a prog point of view. It's a good proto-Crowded House album, the initial songs are catchy, "I Walk Away" is actually also included in Crowded House's debut album. "One mouth is fed" also sounds like some other song in the debut, and so on.

I am a big CH fan, so I can say I've actually really enjoyed Split Enz's "See Ya 'Round", some good songs with great melodies, obviously not as strong as the CH debut, but very good in general. "The Lost Cat" is quite eccentric/quirky, a bit like like the older Split Enz; beyond that track on to the end the songs aren't that good, very weak songs "Adz", "This is massive" and "Ninnie Knees Up", though "Kia Kaha" is acceptable and better than the 3 former songs. So 8 out of 11 songs, that's not too bad :-).

Neil Finn is currently, in my opinion (and many agree), one of best composers alive, this record starts him off as the leader of a group and is interesting as the starting point for his solo/CH career, but has little, or no reason, to be included in Progarchives.