Go Betweens

Robert Forster's endearingly fey persona, equal parts Bryan Ferry and gangly bookstore clerk, reaches full flower on the Go-Betweens' fourth album, which tempers the angularity and occasional claustrophobia of the band's previous work with a new airiness and nervous romanticism. The lighter sound can be partly attributed to the growing influence of co-leader Grant McLennan, whose wistful "Cattle and Cane" and "Bachelor Kisses" lent grace to the Go-Betweens' sometimes stilted early records. McLennan's touch is all over Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express his "In the Core of a Flame," a love song that manages to be at once tenderhearted and impatient, is a highlight but this is still mostly Forster's show, and as such is a revelation.

Arguably Australia's greatest pop group ever, The Go-Betweens seemed to save the best for last when they split in 1989. (They reunited in 1999, and have issued two more studio recordings since that time). 16 Lovers Lane is simply breathtaking; it is a deeply moving, aurally sensual collection of songs about relationships and the broken side of love that never lapses into cheap sentimentality or cynicism. Songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan had always been visionary when it came to charting personal and relational melancholy and heartbreak, but here, their resolve focused on charting the depths of the romantic's soul when it has been disillusioned or crestfallen, is simply and convincingly taut.

Tallulah, the Go-Betweens fifth album, was supposed to be the band's breakthrough recording in America. That said, its sound is nearly a full-on break with the edginess that began to fade on 1986's Liberty Belle and The Black Diamond Express. More lush, rounded, and polished, it sounds like a record made in the mid-'80s thanks in large part to Lindy Morrison's use of drum programs in addition to her trap kit. Add to this the contributions of new member Amanda Brown on violin, oboe, and backing vocals and one has a revamped band. Fans didn't take to the new sound with kindness initially, but the songwriting of Forster and McLennan was so much more focused and taut, it more than compensates for production errors.