THE Finn Brothers, Tim and younger bro Neil, have long been the finished article in dark and light melodic songwriting from the Antipodes.

This late-summer, the New Zealand stalwarts meet their match in another sibling coupling from over there, the Australian-born Danny and Julian Wilson, who have long lived in South London and have been a secret treasure since 1998's Road Music.

The Lights In This Town Are Too Many To Count is their fourth album, and just maybe its lead-off single, Maybe I'm A Winner, will be prophetic.

The Finn Brothers first worked together in the face-paint days of Split Enz and most successfully on Crowded House's ubiquitous Woodface and they last recorded a Finn Brothers record, Finn, in a four-week side project in 1995.

Everyone Is Here is much more the full monty: recorded in Los Angeles with uber-producers Mitchell Froom and Bob Clearmountain, and Tony Visconti overseeing the string section. Like Phil and Don Everly, their harmonies are innate, no matter the decade-long gap between albums, and their mature songwriting is as crafted as ever, with the passing of years lending a vulnerability, disquiet and sense of melancholic mortality to songs of surface calm.

If autumn is settling upon the Finns, the equally tender, emotionally honest Grand Drive are bathed in summer light as their sonic radar moves from their pedal-steel roots in heartbroken alt.country to a broader canvas of American influences.

They sweep up the Flaming Lips, the West Coast halcyon days of the Beach Boys and even a Motown soulfulness, writing home truths that spread beyond their Croydon base. What's more, their songs surpass the 2004 vintage Finns, no mean feat.

Updated: 08:52 Thursday, September 02, 2004