POP MUSIC REVIEW : CROWDED HOUSE IN L.A. DEBUT

Is Crowded House the great white hope of power pop?

Opinions do seem to be running in that direction, and the New Zealand trio did nothing in its L.A. debut Wednesday at the Roxy--a crowded little club, indeed, for the first of the group’s two nights--to dissuade anyone from such a pronouncement.

Hooks both familiar and spanking new were uniformly well-baited. And any band that can wax truly sensitive on love and mortality and instigate a food fight within a 10-minute period is ripe for all the success Crowded House is chalking up.

Band leader Neil Finn’s former band Split Enz never would’ve gotten away with as rapturously romantic a ballad as “Don’t Dream It’s Over” (the current hit, which is among the least of the debut album’s treasures). But there’s still a lot of intellectual unease amid all that romanticism, which is very much in the Split Enz tradition.

Crowded House does show traces of leftover “progressive” tendencies, and on the other end, folk-rock is an equally key element--at times the three members were lined up on stage as if for a hootenanny, with drummer Paul Hester banging on a single snare and cymbal at center stage.

But between those extremes, Finn more often now recalls Paul McCartney at his “Abbey Road”-era best, albeit with a good deal more rock ‘n’ roll muscle. Moreover, the group manages to conjure up those comparisons without wearing the slightest Beatlesque affectations on their sleeves.

The Roxy show had too many diverse touches--including a great deal of spectacular, jazzy piano noodling from sideman Eddie Rainor on keyboards--and the band has too winningly casual and self-deprecating a stage personality to allow any harping about possible derivation.