Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

Consumer Guide:
  User's Guide
  Grades 1990-
  Grades 1969-89
  And It Don't Stop
Books:
  Book Reports
  Is It Still Good to Ya?
  Going Into the City
  Consumer Guide: 90s
  Grown Up All Wrong
  Consumer Guide: 80s
  Consumer Guide: 70s
  Any Old Way You Choose It
  Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough
Xgau Sez
Writings:
  And It Don't Stop
  CG Columns
  Rock&Roll& [new]
  Rock&Roll& [old]
  Music Essays
  Music Reviews
  Book Reviews
  NAJP Blog
  Playboy
  Blender
  Rolling Stone
  Billboard
  Video Reviews
  Pazz & Jop
  Recyclables
  Newsprint
  Lists
  Miscellany
Bibliography
NPR
Web Site:
  Home
  Site Map
  Contact
  What's New?
    RSS
Carola Dibbell:
  Carola's Website
  Archive
CG Search:
Google Search:
Twitter:
****

ROBERT FORSTER
The Evangelist
Yep Roc

Surviving half of indelible Australian songwriting combo is still collaborating, even after death.

"There was melody, there was harmony, there was sweet Sherrie, but it was melody he loved most of all," Robert Forster recalls in "It Ain't Easy," his warm, quick-stepping tribute to fellow Go-Between Grant McLennan. It's one of three Forster-McLennan titles on Forster's finest solo album--his first since McLennan's fatal 2006 heart attack. Especially on the Go-Betweens' later records, McLennan's abiding tunefulness set off Forster's spikier, talkier songs, so they glinted like knives in the sun. Here "The Evangelist," which mulls the return to Brisbane that displaced his German wife, and the standout "If It Rains," about a drought, both precede excellent McLennan collaborations. Conjuring doubts and hopes with focused tenderness, Forster's writing has never been surer. For flow and chemistry's sake, let's hope there are more McLennan melodies in his kit.

Blender, May 2008