Mental Notes (1975)
Split Enz’s debut is one of those records that doesn’t so much introduce a band as drop you into the deep end. There’s no soft landing. New Zealand’s finest came out of the gate in 1975 swinging between art rock, prog, and pop, rarely sitting in one time signature longer than it takes you to get comfortable. It’s restless, theatrical, and a little unhinged, and most of that lives in the vocals.
Tim Finn and Phil Judd split the lead vocals across the record, and they go about it completely differently. Finn is the steadier hand, the one who puts a melody where you’d expect to find it. Judd is the wild card. Quick confession: I have a habit of poking fun at family and friends who love singers with voices that split a room. Alanis Morissette, Morrissey, Billy Corgan, Thom Yorke, the usual lineup. Judd belongs in that club, possibly running for president of it. His delivery is artsy, twitchy, faintly deranged, and it took me a few passes to stop fighting it. Some days it’s the best part of the record. Other days I catch myself running the thought experiment: what does Mental Notes become with a more conventional frontman? Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Greg Lake, a young David Gilmour? Probably a cleaner five-star album. Possibly a much more boring one. That tension never resolves, and the record is better for it.
It opens with Walking Down a Road, all soft piano and weightless vocals, and immediately tips its hand on the musicianship. The drumming is busy and odd in a way prog usually isn’t, with a playfulness under the complexity that I keep not finding anywhere else in the genre.
Then Under the Wheel shows up and runs past seven minutes without wasting any of them. Intricate time changes, dense guitar and keyboard work, and a vocal melody that creeps you out. The recurring “get on back home to my mother” lands somewhere between lullaby and Norman Bates, the kind of line you’d happily slot onto a Halloween playlist. It moves through section after section, each one stacking on the last, and it earns the patience it asks for.
Amy (Darling) might be the best thing here. It opens with a country twang you don’t see coming, then slides into Penny Lane whimsy before turning theatrical. The way it keeps changing costumes without ever dropping the melody is the whole album in miniature.
So Long for Now rides one of the funkiest bass lines I’ve come across, and Spellbound hands Judd a great guitar solo while Emlyn Crowther gets gloriously off-kilter behind the kit. Time for a Change is the quiet showpiece, piano and acoustic guitar circling each other before the whole thing swells into a payoff that more than earns the buildup. And Titus is basically Eddie Rayner’s keyboard showcase, the band closing out by reminding you how good they are even when they stop trying to startle you.
So: an eccentric, theatrical, deeply assured debut that fuses art rock, prog, and pop without sounding like it’s checking boxes. Every song is built with care, and the melodies stick. Whether you live in prog, art rock, or just good weird music, this one earns an open mind. No Skip Album. Welcome to the NSA club, Split Enz.
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Highlight Songs
Walking Down the Road
Under The Wheel
Amy (Darling)
Time For a Change
Own it, Stream it, Forget about it?
Depends entirely on your taste. If artsy, experimental, prog-leaning pop rock is your thing, don’t even hesitate, and if you fall for it, it’s worth owning outright. If you like your music streamlined and predictable, this one will probably grate, but it’s worth checking out and seeing for yourself.
Overall Rating:
4.5 Stars
