Go-Betweens – The Friends Of Rachel Worth
The Go-Betweens always did have a flair for beginnings and endings. When Grant McLennan and Robert Forster met in 1977 as avant-garde college students in Queensland, Australia, it was a coupling that produced some of the most edgy romantic pop songs of the 1980s. But it was never a smooth ride, and there were many endings and diversions, including a long exodus in London, before what seemed like the inevitable, final split in 1989.
Yet over ten years later, McLennan and Forster are back with The Friends Of Rachel Worth, and the wonder of it all is that this is their finest work yet. There’s none of the jaded second-honeymoon feeling that filters into many comebacks; this is a sparkling fresh, taut, evocative and perfectly realized album. It also demonstrates the profound influence the band has had on followers such as Belle & Sebastian, Pavement, Elliott Smith and Teenage Fanclub.
Recorded at Jackpot Studios in Portland, Oregon with Sleater-Kinney’s Janet Weiss on drums and Quasi’s Sam Coomes on keyboards, Friends resonates with glorious pop moments, but the bookends of the album are the most elegant waymarks to the newfound depth of the McLennan-Forster partnership.
“I don’t wanna change a thing when there’s magic in here,” sings Forster on the opening track over the sort of tangled, tenacious guitar lines that characterized so many classic Go-Betweens songs. And the magical feel of the album is never so mesmeric as on the final number, “When She Sang About Angels”, a love song to Patti Smith. The ponderously dreamy phrasings, acoustic guitar and tender strings capture perfectly the whimsy of the singer’s meditation on a boyhood heroine. As that’s the sort of passionate devotion many feel toward the Go-Betweens, it all makes perfect sense.