Both of these bands hail from Australia (Split Enz via New Zealand), and both have released best-selling albums in that country. Stylistically, however, they have very little in common.

Ever since their bizarre early-Seventies beginnings, Split Enz have taken the high pop-art road. Their specialty is decorating fetching, slyly Beatlesque hooks with the sweeping futuristic flash of the early Roxy Music. But where Split Enz once had a tendency to stumble on the rocks of their own schizophrenia, Time and Tide is an ingenious reconciliation of tunes and technique.

In "Giant Heartbeat," for example, Neil Finn's seductive "Dear Prudence" guitar figure is brightened, not overrun, by Eddie Rayner's playful horror-movie keyboard kitsch. Ditto for "Hello Sandy Allen" and "Small World." The former is a joking, neo-heavy-metal variation on the cheery strut of the group's 1980 hit, "I Got You," while slinky guitar riffs and rumbling percussion bubble under singer Tim Finn's hearty delivery and the glassy chorus harmonies of the mutant calypso "Small World."

Split Enz even give rock operas a good name by the ease and smartly arranged style with which they link a grand keyboard entrance à la South Pacific, a breezy folk-rock singalong with circus calliope and underwater sound effects ("Six Months in a Leaky Boat"), a synth-pop sailor's hornpipe ("Haul Away") and a spooky, dub-altered ballad with hard-rock finish ("Log Cabin Fever").

Men at Work are real lowriders by comparison. They have absorbed the sparse rhythmic spunk of reggae and the punchy yet articulate brevity of postpunk pop (the Police, Elvis Costello), and they play with the earthy conviction of a rousing pub-rock band like the Rumour. The group's monster Aussie hit, "Down Under," captures that spirit perfectly. Vocalist Colin Hay strikes a bold, daunting stance somewhere between the high tenor wail of Sting and the smoky gruffness of Burning Spear's Winston Rodney, while Greg Ham throws a real curve with his puckish flute runs.

The rest of the album is just as good. "Be Good Johnny" announces itself with a bruiser of a guitar flourish nicked from the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again." Ham's blowsy sax and the rousing chorus of voices raised in alcoholic harmony spark the rugged boogie of "Who Can It Be Now?" And both "I Can See It in Your Eyes" and "Underground" testify to the tuneful charms of Colin Hay's songwriting. If this album is business as usual for Men at Work, their future in rock is secure. (RS 374)

DAVID FRICKE