THE GO-BETWEENS
Send Me a Lullaby ***1/2
Before Hollywood ****1/2
Spring Hill Fair ****
(Beggars Banquet)
The Go-Betweens are what's called a textbook case. Originally a stark, agitated twosome, over 12 years they became an ornate six-person pop group. While leaders Robert Forster and Grant McLennan maintained a consistent level of quality songwriting, the dulling forces of stability, maturity, and over-production made their later albums less individual, especially in comparison with the rampant bizarritude evident on their just-reissued early albums.
Along with the Saints, the Go-Betweens are the finest band Australia ever produced. They began in Brisbane in 1978 as a guitar-bass duo, but added drummer Lindy Morrison before recording Send Me a Lullaby, their willful, difficult debut album. Hardly for neophytes, the album lacks both a producer and anything approaching a hook. The guitar is scratchy and jangly, embellishing the songs rather than carrying them, which the bass nominally does. Forster's guitar jumps from one chord to another, seemingly at random, and only establishes structure by repeating the same inappropriate jumps. It's not quite Schoenberg, but it is some of the most hostile pop music ever.
The most melodic songs, McLennan's flowing waltz "Your Turn, My Turn" and Forster's paranoid "Eight Pictures," are the most striking. In the latter, Forster strums a nearly traditional progression, but without any sort of strict rhythm. As he strains his voice to moan, "I shot you with my camera / Caught you doing things with him," the effect is terrifying. The drums enter halfway through, but only for 20 seconds of random pounding before the noise subsides, and Forster resumes his obsessive harangue.
McLennan sings a few of the songs on Lullaby in a strident, untrained squeal; on all subsequent albums, he splits the songwriting and singing evenly with Forster. McLennan's voice is sweeter and more attractive than Forster's, and his songs are calmer. But for those of us who like our angst served up raw, McLennan cannot approach Forster in voice or song. He's just a little too subtle and a little too normal.
Before Hollywood shows off more of the same weird chord progressions, particularly on Forster's magnificently dysfunctional "By Chance," but organizes them into more accessible and fleshed-out songs. Forster's songwriting is much more crafted than before, but Hollywood is the only album on which McLennan really outshines him. McLennan's quietly haunting "Dusty in Here," written in memory of his father, and his beautiful, nostalgic "Cattle and Cane" both show an incredible attention to texture, even with sparse instrumentation. But the album's peak is "As Long as That," a menacing exorcism of a doomed relationship where Forster and McLennan trade off weary, resigned lines like "I'm not stuck to be inspired by her or by me / Get this, and how, I'm lifted way, way down." Uncompromising, yet touching and varied, Before Hollywood is the group's best album.
The Go-Betweens added bassist Robert Vickers on Spring Hill Fair, making for a more traditional lineup and sound. When combined with thick, occasionally smooth production, the unorthodox structures fight with the arrangements. None of this really matters, though, because most of the songs are excellent. McLennan's songwriting is not as expressive or effective and he occasionally slips into the sugary pop that would wreck some of his later songs. But he almost approaches Forster's level of agitation on "Slow Slow Music" and provides a weird digression on the spoken-word "River of Money." Forster is in top form, especially on the contemptuous, calm(!) "Draining the Pool for You" and the memorably boppy "Man O'Sand to Girl O'Sea," where chants of "I want you back" offset sentiments like "I feel so sure of our love / I'll write a song about us breaking up." It ends in a remarkably proficient and remarkably long guitar solo that spotlights the Go-Betweens' continuing development.
After Spring Hill Fair, the Go-Betweens went on to make three albums with more production and less quirks. While never less than good, they can't really compare to these three, where the Go-Betweens sound like no one else. Even Send Me a Lullaby, for all its abrasiveness, defies any criticism of carelessness in its calculated neuroses. Don't let these albums be lost to the ages.
-David Auerbach
Copyright 1996, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
This article may be freely distributed electronically, provided it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice, but may not be reprinted without the express written permission of The Yale Herald, Inc. Write to herald@yale.edu for additional details.