The suicide of ex-drummer Paul Hester reunited Crowded House front man Neil Finn with band-mates Nick Seymour and Mark Hart a decade after the group split.

The resulting 2007 revival “debut”, Time On Earth, was characteristically accomplished, but inhabited a dark, grief-stricken landscape that must have baffled casual fans of hits like It’s Only Natural or the deceptively jaunty Weather With You.

Beck’s drummer Matt Sherrod had joined the band, but Hester’s shadow was long.

The new Crowded House offering, Intriguer, sees the sun shine back into Finn’s song-writing, while his voice, one of the abiding glories of pop, has lost none of its power to enchant.

Gorgeous melodies sweep away the listener on Either Side Of The World and Twice If You’re Lucky. Archer’s Arrows is another winner, as is Falling Dove, whose delicate beginnings swell into a Beatles-style bridge. Sharon Finn duets with her husband on Intriguer, which could have been a toe-curling blunder but, happily, it results in the trippy Isolation.

This being Crowded House, life is not all sun-drenched uplands.

Lyrically, Finn has always explored relationships more complex than your bog-standard boy-meets-girl.

The wry, brooding Amsterdam prowls the seedy side of human existence, and wistfulness pervades closing track Elephants.

It’s not an album to seize you by the throat like Woodface, the band’s most successful UK release; nor is it Together Alone, arguably its finest work. But lovers of melodic, adult, subtle pop are likely to be seduced by Intriguer.