INXS: Welcome To Wherever You Are : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

INXS may be rock's most popular underachiever. Listen Like Thieves (1985) had verve, hooks and an amazing rhythm section and hinted at the group's potential as Australia's answer to the Police or U2. Tragically, it was around then that jealous Klingons kidnapped singer Michael Hutchence and performed the lobotomy that disconnected his higher emotional and intellectual functions. The result was a couple of albums of awfully pleasant but frightfully vacuous designer funk ("New Sensation") and breathy ballads. Sure, they sell – but do they matter?

On Welcome to Wherever You Are, INXS tries to regain its momentum and almost succeeds. This is musically the band's richest, most adventurous outing since Thieves – chock-full with irresistible hooks, churning rhythms and Beatlesque orchestrations. You'd have to hate rock not to be uplifted by the drive and flair of "Heaven Sent" – at least for the first 14.6 seconds. You'd have to be superhuman not to drift off after that. Like the rest of the album, this is music that attracts but hasn't the gravity or resonance to hold your attention.

Hutchence seems dissociated from his material, dispassionately competent. This isn't postmodern "holding back," nor is the man shallow or a poseur. He's just distanced and unfocused. Even the Sixties-style light romp "Baby Don't Cry" doesn't radiate naive fun. And the more you try to hang on to the delight-fully tumbling hook of "All Around," the more frustrated you get, as all that you thought was solid melts into air. Even the guitar riffs are big, empty and bland. Hutchence redeems himself when he hunkers down with his steaming rhythm section on the wonderfully neo-Stax funk of "Wishing Well" and "Taste It." Elsewhere, he just can't or won't let go.

Paradoxically, the wealth of musical gifts on the album makes the one-dimensional delivery stand out all the more dramatically. With a name like INXS, this band should make us laugh, make us cry, make us crawl on our bellies like reptiles. Instead the group just teases us with possibilities.