Review Summary: A haunting and intimate tribute to a lost friend.
Grant William McLennan, 48 years old Australian songwriter and one half of the indie group The Go-Betweens, suddenly died of a heart attack on 6th May 2006 in his home in Brisbane. At the time of his death, he and his long-time songwriting partner Robert Forster were in the course of writing songs for their 10th studio release. About one year later, in summer 2007, Robert Forster began finishing the old material and writing new songs in a struggle of coming to terms with his friend’s death what resulted in one of the most intimate albums imaginable. Though Robert Forster said he recorded it to make people feel comfortable with it, it seems more like being something written just for himself. So personal and intimate that I’m actually feeling almost ashamed to review it, taken the fact that my knowledge of The Go-Betweens was limited to a song Mobilkom has used in a television commercial before I’ve heard this album. But its beauty and heartfelt emotion has convinced me that I need to hear more of them.
Sadly I can give you only a few facts about the band: The Go-Betweens were founded in 1977 in said Brisbane, Australia by the two songwriters and except for a pause in the nineties they toured and recorded together with various band members for the last thirty years, never gaining great fame, but a loyal fan base. Both songwriters have released various solo albums, with this one being Robert Forster’s fifth one and the first one in twelve years.
Most of “The Evangelist” can be divided into two kinds of songs: slow folksy tunes without the need of percussion and faster pop songs, driven by Glenn Thompson’s drumming. The female bassist Adele Pickvance adds background vocals to most of the songs and Audrey Riley is responsible for the string arrangements. The whole album was produced by Mark Willis and Dave Ruffy, to whom must be given credit: they’ve accomplished a wonderful, never excessive but always haunting sound. All of the songs are kept simple, both in arrangement and in composition. Yet that doesn’t take anything away, although the album is an easy listen the songs still need some time to grow and unfold. Some of them seem almost too simple at first but after a few listens every one of them proves to be carefully written and constructed, there's not one letdown to be found on the tracklist.
It starts off slowly with the calm
If It Rains, containing almost nothing but various layers of acoustic guitars and Robert Forster’s voice. Then the album reaches its first highlight with the heartbreaking
Demon Days, one of the three songs co-written by Grant McLennan.
“The half whispered hopes / The dreams that we smoked / Puffed up and ran / As only dreams can”, Robert Forster sings over his acoustic guitar and a soft string arrangement. It’s one of those rare songs that has the power to bring tears to someone’s eyes:
“But something’s not right / Something’s gone wrong”. However, the other two slow folk tracks are solid, but not nearly as amazing as the two openers.
The Evangelist deals with Robert Forster’s German wife Karin Bäumler and the problems occurring because she has moved with him to Australia:
“I took her out of her home, a cabin near the woods / And took her to this desert with threatening neighbourhoods”, not without ending on a positive note:
“And I believe, baby / I believe in us”. The faster side of the album, (though “fast” is the wrong term to describe it) offers a nice distraction from the melancholic songs.
Pandanus is my favourite among of them, though
Did She Overtake You? and the mandolin-driven single
Let Your Light in, Babe (co-written by Grant McLennan) are great and in the second case even joyful songs.
When I’ve told you most of “The Evangelist” can be divided into two kinds of songs, I was referring to the first seven tracks. Just before the formula grows boring Robert Forster stops and leads his album into a new direction. The last third of the album is its best and most interesting part, all three songs breaking in one way or another with the schemes set by the album to that point.
Don’t Touch Anything, the most atypical song on here and my personal favourite, kicks off with an organ that has a classic rock feeling to it, which is even enhanced by the cynic lyrics:
“Don’t get involved / Just let it burn or ring / Wait until it gets fixed / And don’t touch anything”. The last two tracks are the ones dealing most openly with Grant McLennan’s death. On
It Ain’t Easy the pain is hidden beneath a seemingly happy sound including a playful violin and the “fastest” rhythm scheme on the album, but the lyrics tell a different story:
“And a river ran, and a train ran, and a dream ran through everything that he did / There was melody, there was harmony, there was sweet Sherrie, but it was melody he loved most of all”. And if lyrics like those wouldn’t be tribute enough Robert Forster uses a chorus originally written by Grant McLennan:
“It ain’t easy, when that love is blue, the love is blue”. But then the eventual closer
From Ghost Town emerges and it’s just outright sad. Forgoing the guitars, it relies mainly on a piano line, backed up by nice backing vocals and some strings:
“There are places he could have stayed / But he had to go because he loved the rain / There were hearts there was help / But he couldn’t love them because he didn’t love himself”. The song and with it the whole album is brought to an end by a mourning harmonica and leaves the listener in a strange state of emotional sadness and musical satisfaction.
Though being a Robert Forster solo record I have the feeling that “The Evangelist” will be remembered as Grant McLennan’s album. And that must have been just what Robert Forster had in mind. It is a wonderful album, gentle and soft, beautiful and melancholic and worth an urging recommendation.
