The Go-Betweens 'Oceans Apart'
With re-unions apparently all the rage and with differing levels of commercial and critical success – witness the recent comebacks by Pixies, The Wedding Present and The Wonder Stuff, not to mention the soon-to-come grungefest from Dinosaur Jr – it’s timely that Australia’s The Go-Betweens return with their third and most successful album since their reformation in 2000.
Criminally ignored in the 1980s by all but the most dedicated of fans – that’ll be music journalists and students, then – ‘Oceans Apart’ is the sound of a band that cares less about commercial targets and more about producing a high-quality addition to their already formidable cannon of work.
Fronted by songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, ‘Oceans Apart’ – as suggested by its title - has the feel of an epic journey as it takes in varying locations to stop and visit both physically and mentally. Opener ‘Here Comes A City’ sets the pace as driving acoustic guitars and insistent drums recreate the feeling of a train in motion as Forster narrates the view from the his carriage “Passing churches, passing stations/A bus-link complex, I see a sequence.” It’s a motif that’s picked up by McLennan on ‘Finding You’, this time considering the search for love and security as he sings, “I don’t know where it’s going/but I know it’s finding you”.
But it’s on ‘Darlinghurst Nights’, the album’s centrepiece, where things really fall beautifully into place. Building slowly and methodically from acoustic beginnings to a magnificent brass coda, Forster considers his life – the youthful ambitions of dreams that will never be realised, the late nights spent with the friends and lovers encountered along the way and that through it all, there’s no time for regret, only the experience of learning from being.
Of all the most recent comebacks, The Go-Betweens’ has been the most sincere. This isn’t a case of securing a pension plan before time runs out nor some cynical move to vaingloriously recapture former triumphs one last time but a continuation of what made the band so special in the first place and the need for two quality songwriters to spark off of each another. Long may they continue to roam.
The Go-Betweens 'Oceans Apart' (Lo-Max) Released April 25 2005.
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