|
| |
|
|
Reunion times
The Go-Betweens hit their stride
BY ELIOT WILDER
|
|
|
|
Related Links
The Go-Betweens' official Web site Eliot Wilder reviews The Go-Betweens' Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express; Tallulah; 16 Lovers Lane Mike Miliard reviews The Go-Betweens' Bright Yellow Bright Orange
|
We are living in the Age of the Reunion, where everyone from the Pixies to the Pogues to the MC5 and the New York Dolls is finding that, with or without core members (Queen with Paul Rodgers? C’mon!), there’s money to be made performing for nostalgia-hungry audiences. Many of these bands offer nothing more than nostalgia — not that I care, but will the Eagles ever release an album of new material? As the Beatles proved with "Free As a Bird," the fragile magic that’s created when musicians come together in a certain place at a certain time is impossible to re-create. Well, almost impossible. The Go-Betweens are proving that if you can’t go home again, you can at least build a new one. Formed in Brisbane in 1978 by the songwriting duo Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, the Go-Betweens at first drew on the lyricism of Bob Dylan and the punk spirit of fellow Aussies the Saints. Theirs was a terse, angular sound, but not without graceful melodies to help along all those bittersweet meditations on loneliness and dread. It was too poetic for punk and too highbrow for new wave; radio was not interested. They were the ultimate cult band of the ’80s. And in Forster and McLennan they had a sort of alt Lennon and McCartney, Forster wryly opaque, McLennan crystal clear. By the end of their first run they had produced three albums — 1986’s Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express, 1987’s Tallulah, and 1988’s 16 Lovers Lane — that would be high-water marks in any era of popular music. (All three were reissued last year, each with a bonus disc of extras.) In 1989, the band folded quietly. After a batch of decent solo outings each, Forster and McLennan reconvened for 2000’s respectable if tentative The Friends of Rachel Worth. Bright Yellow Bright Orange (2003) attested that their reunion was no one-off event and that, with new bassist Adele Pickvance and drummer Glenn Thompson, they were again a working band. Now comes Oceans Apart (Yep Roc). It’s not that they’ve reinvented themselves — they’re simply continuing to make engaging and beautiful music. Produced by Mark Wallis, who helped sculpt 16 Lovers Lane, the album opens with the rock-solid "Here Comes the City," which, all jangled guitars and blunt-force drums, begins with what could be a statement of intent: "Just pulled out of a train station/We’re moving sideways." Not the direction you’d expect for a train, but one that seems natural for the Go-Betweens. The CD moves across a physical and emotional landscape populated by misfits ("Born to a Family"), seekers ("Finding You"), the disenfranchised ("Lavender"), and the struggling ("Boundary Riders"). When Forster attempts to thumb through an old diary on "Darlinghurst Nights," nostalgia gets mixed up with palpable yearning: "I snapped it shut but out jumped some tears/I didn’t have to read it, it all came back." The Go-Betweens have come back, but they’re interested in the present, not the past. So don’t go looking for them on any Cult Artists of the ’80s package tour.
|
