Critical Writings

Articles and Reviews: MUSIC

The Evangelist by Robert Forster (Yep Roc/Tags)

This is Robert Forster’s best solo album, better even then his solo debut, Danger in the Past. That said, while it’s not a Go-Betweens’ album, it’s not technically a Forster solo album either. For it is haunted by the death in 2006 from a heart attack of Forster’s long-time collaborator in that great Australian group, Grant McLennan. In fact, McLennan bequeathed his partner three melodies and scattered lyrics, ‘Demon Days’, ‘Let Your Light In’ and ‘It Ain’t Easy’, the first the equal of the finest songs in the deceased’s oeuvre, the last containing the poignant, posthumous addition, ‘I write these words to his tune that he wrote on a full moon’. Forster contributes his own eulogy in ‘From Ghost Town’. Always quirky, here Forster’s sensibility is leavened by the emotional heft of painful experience, producing his most moving work. Classic stuff – like everything the pair did together.

First published in Magill, June/July 2008