Were they prog rockers? New Wave pioneers? Psychedelic tricksters? From the early ‘70s to the mid-‘80s, New Zealand’s Split Enz defied easy categories with a uniquely strange mix of ingredients that could hold listeners spellbound, even when it wasn’t clear what was happening. Spanning 1973 to 1976, the five-disc ENZcyclopedia Volumes One & Two offers a deep dive into this wonderfully odd collective’s formative days, collecting its first two albums and an intriguing batch of odds and ends.
Split Enz was known as Split Ends when it first recorded in 1973. If the group showed influences of Genesis and traditional folk, the end result was something quite different. Singers Tim Finn and Philip Judd wrote the songs, an uneasy mix of attractive melodies and disjointed arrangements. Finn embodied yearning melancholy, while Judd projected twitchy angst. Lyrics favored obliqueness over clarity; the early song “No Bother to Me” contains the line “I’ll be normal someday,” which seemed highly unlikely at the time.
If the Enz’ 1975 debut album, Mental Notes, featured a tug-of-war between accessibility and more perverse impulses, Second Thoughts opted for heightened strangeness. Produced by Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera, this bolder sophomore effort was a head-spinning yet polished affair. ENZcyclopedia includes both the original mix and a new remix from Enz keyboardist Eddie Rayner, which is bigger and brighter than the original without making any radical changes to the sound.
The one thing this satisfying set can’t capture is Split Enz’ distinctive visual stage presentation, which mixed colorful outfits evoking a medieval court jester vibe and Night of the Living Dead menace. The graphics in the booklet give some sense of their unsettling yet curiously appealing aura.
Split Enz calmed down in later years. Tim Finn’s younger brother Neil Finn (who would later launch Crowded House) joined the band after the departure of Judd, as the group curbed its eccentricities in favor of a more commercial approach, resulting in the unlikely hit single “I See Red.” However, nothing matches their wacky early work for sheer exhilaration like the still-fresh sounds on ENZcyclopedia Volumes One & Two.
