Robert Forster, The Evangelist
Featured Album
Half of the Go-Betweens pays tribute to his departed partner.
"It was a head trip, it was a friendship, but he picked me up when I might have slipped and not done a thing," Robert Forster sings on "It Ain't Easy," one of the ten songs on the inspirational, life-affirming and just plain entertaining The Evangelist. The album is Forster's first since the unexpected 2006 death of Grant McLennan, his longtime partner in the Go-Betweens. Prolific, yet often marked by long dormancies over their 25-year lifespan, the group had a reputation for literacy, wit, economy and melody, and all of those elements remain in strong supply on The Evangelist.
But it's more than just McLennan's ghost that's present in this smart and moving set. Choruses or verses he penned enrich four of the tunes, including the breezy "Let Your Light In, Babe" and the wistful "Demon Days," which presciently declares: "But something's not right/ Something's gone wrong." Despite its direct confrontation with mortality and loss, The Evangelist is never mawkish. Often it is uplifting, with tracks like "Did She Overtake You" and "Ghost Town" richly crafted and buoyed by a beguiling intelligence. Forster presents his songs in a conversational tone with perfect emotional pitch, and the playing of multi-instrumentalist Go-Betweens Adele Pickvance and Glenn Thompson (often augmented by sparely arranged violins and cellos) are supportive in every sense of the word.
