release date: April 23, 1985
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,82]
producer: Colin Hay & Greg Ham
label: Columbia - nationality: Australia
3rd and final studio album by the Australian band Men At Work following two years after Cargo. The band had taken a short hiatus before returning to planned rehearsals for an upcoming album when tensions within the band resulted in the dismissals of both drummer Jerry Speiser and bassist John Rees before the beginning of the recording sessions. Primary songwriter Colin Hay and multi-instrumentalist Greg Ham added drum programming to several tracks, and they brought in session musicians as stand-ins for Speiser and Rees. Guitarist Ron Strykert is credited as regular band member but he also left the band reduced to a duo before the album was finished, and both Hay and Ham are songwriters and composers of all but one song and they are also in charge of production and mixing of the band's final album.
Musically, they try to make yet another pop / rock album with the use of other stylistic elements - mostly synth pop and pop funk, whereas the new wave from the first two albums is completely gone. Soundwise, the album reveals more orchestrated arrangements with the use of keyboards as replacements for brass and strings.
The album peaked at number #16 on the Australian albums chart list (number #50 in the US) but it didn't produce any single hits. With a bunch of session musicians, Hay and Ham toured as Men At Work with the album, and in the fall of '85 Ham left Hay to continue the band, which officially disbanded in early '86, and Colin Hay began work on his first solo album Looking for Jack (1987).
Two Hearts is easily the band's least favourable album and not a recommended listen.
[ allmusic.com 2 / 5 stars ]
