Conflicting Emotions
	Produced by Hugh Padgham and Eddie Rayner
	Released on 1983
	(no chart information)
	Find it at GEMM
SP 4963 cover

Conflicting Emotions indeed, as Tim Finn would soon split the Enz for a solo career. With Tim distracted by his own Escapade, brother Neil and Eddie Rayner rowed harder to keep the band afloat. They succeed in some cases, notably on the beautiful ballads “Message To My Girl” (though I’m tempted to call it a Squeeze knockoff) and “The Devil You Know.” But Tim’s overtapped well of ideas and Neil’s overtaxed share of the songwriting meant that second-string ideas like “Bullet Brain And Cactus Head” found themselves pressed into service. Rayner’s production touch is hardly invisible, with lots of mechnical effects (he’s credited with keyboards and “machines,” if that’s any indication) layered in the arrangements. Sometimes the busy arrangements bury a good idea (“No Mischief”), sometimes they amplify it (“Strait Old Line”). As much as I’d like to say the band went out with a bang, it was more of a mechanical clank. Time And Tide and True Colours were great albums, Waiata and Frenzy good ones, but Conflicting Emotions is merely okay. The band replaces emotion with effects, and the prickly-sweet adventures of old become agitated encounters. In its defense, “Strait Old Line” is as fine as fish as you’d find in Time And Tide’s catch and “Bon Voyage” is vintage Tim, but that you’d have to defend a Split Enz album at all shows the problem. From what I’ve read, the subsequent See Ya Round is one worth ditching, so this may be as far as some Split Enz fans are willing to venture. Bonne chance.

SP 4963 back cover	SP 4963 lyric sleeve

TRACK LISTING

1. STRAIT OLD LINE    (Neil Finn)    4:00
2. BULLET BRAIN AND CACTUS HEAD    (Neil Finn)    3:55
3. MESSAGE TO MY GIRL    (Neil Finn)    4:02
4. WORKING UP AN APPETITE    (Tim Finn)    4:05
5. OUR DAY    (Neil Finn)    4:54
6. NO MISCHIEF    (Neil Finn)    4:14
7. THE DEVIL YOU KNOW    (Neil Finn)    3:34
8. I WAKE UP EVERY NIGHT    (Tim Finn)    4:45
9. CONFLICTING EMOTIONS    (Tim Finn)    4:31
10. BON VOYAGE    (Tim Finn)    4:02

CREDITS

NOEL CROMBIE -- drums and percussion, back cover illustration
NEIL FINN -- vocals, guitar and piano
TIM FINN -- vocals and piano
NIGEL GRIGGS -- bass
EDDIE RAYNER -- keyboards and machines, mixing
Ricky Fataar -- additional help
Eddie Quansah -- additional help
Hugh Padgham -- engineer, mixing
Glen Phimister -- EMI recording engineer
Phil Judd -- front cover illustration

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