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The Go-Betweens
Oceans Apart
Yep Roc, 2005

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One afternoon when i was living in Boston (while Veronica was in LA, so i had lots of free time), i was perusing Audiogalaxy on the lookout for some interesting new tunes. On the front page was an article about the Go-Betweens, an Australian indie pop band who had recently reformed and put out an album called the Friends of Rachel Worth, featuring contributions by members of Sleater-Kinney. Indie pop? And Sleater-Kinney? I was intrigued, so i picked up the album. Whoa. The opening riff of "Going Blind" ("you've sure got a funny way of hanging on to the Babylon of the always gone") had me hooked. I delved deeper, and learned the band had a twenty year history. I amassed their older albums, but in general found them to be hit or miss affairs ... great for culling a "best of" compilation but not rock solid on their own. Their second reunion album, 2003's Bright Yellow Bright Orange seemed a proof of this theory, offering no real standout tracks and failing to capture my attention for more than five minutes. That said, it took two encounters with 2005's Oceans Apart, separated by three months, for me to realize just how great an album it was. Grant McLennan and Robert Forster's characteristic styles keep the record as a whole engaging. The opener "Here Comes a City" is an upbeat travelling number spouting observations during a train journey, laced with Forster's characteristic knowing, hip vocals ("why do people who read Dostoyevsky, look like Dostoyevsky?"). As is the pattern for the album, the next contribution comes from McLennan, the heartfelt acoustic ballad "Finding You". Gone is Forster's cynicism, replaced with McLennan's lovelorn reflections ("and then the lightning finds us, burns away our kindness") . This alternation continues with Forster's bouncy "Born to a Family" ("born to a family, a family of workers, what can i do?"), McLennan's "Boundary Rider" and its wonderful arpeggiated melody, and the album's hump in Forster's sprawling memoire "Darlinghurst Nights". No song feels forced or like filler, each has a captivating rhythm and melody as well as an intelligent story behind it. As Allmusic put it, the first great Go-Betweens record of the 21st century.

 

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