Pop Music Reviews : Tim Finn Steps Out of Shadows at the Roxy

When he spoke between songs Thursday at the Roxy, Tim Finn built up fearsome heads of steam. The New Zealander could have been a passionate professor inflamed with the urgency of his discovery, or a preacher possessed by the wonder of his revelation.

The words rushed and tumbled, Finn spouted and sputtered like John Cleese at the boiling point, then he led with his jutting chin into another stormy encounter with the meat of the human condition.

He sang with a mad gleam in his eyes, and when the tempo and the temperature were up, Finn tossed his head to spray perfectly lit mists of sweat into the air. When he danced in his jerky fashion, he seemed to be bucking demons off his back.

Finn might be all too aware of the effects of his antics, but whether plotted or impromptu, they did enlarge and intensify the impact of his songs, which don’t quite leap to full life on the new album “Tim Finn.”

Overall, a fine way to raise the low profile he’s kept since his old band Split Enz broke up, and to escape the shadow of his brother Neil, a cult star of sorts as a member of Crowded House.

Other shadows lurked, though. Ray Davies’, for one, in Finn’s ironic bent, tortured undercurrent and theatrical touch. Peter Gabriel, for another, in the backing quartet, which is Gabriel’s regular crew. It’s hard to imagine Finn’s songs having the same force without their assured blend of progressive sophistication and visceral punch, on everything from the playful to the sober to the sweeping.

But Finn can claim original, distinctive ground as well. Behind his tuneful front, he’s into big stuff, mainly humankind’s place in the scheme of things, and he has imagery to match--from daunting natural forces on the grand end to faith and tears on the intimate. When he combines that strain with social comment, as in his mystic-flavored account of a 19th-Century Maori leader, Finn cooks up the Kiwi heebie-jeebies like nobody’s business.