The Go-Betweens' initial break-up followed a fruitful span of six classic records, so when principals Robert Forster and Grant McLennan went their separate ways in 1989, there was at least a sense of mission accomplished. At the time, with solo careers embarked upon and new collaborators recruited, few expected the pair to reconvene as the Go-Betweens, which they eventually did roughly 10 years later. With the untimely 2006 death of McLennan came a sickening feeling of permanence, however; the excellent Oceans Apart would serve as the Go-Betweens' true swan song. Making the loss of McLennan all the more painful was Forster's reminiscence in Australia's The Monthly (for whom Forster has become a cultural critic), that "we were on the cusp of something," and that "album number 10 was going to be something special."
It's impossible to listen to Forster's The Evangelist without thinking of McLennan, but to his credit Forster has designed it that way. Three songs were in fact co-written with McLennan, bequeathed to Forster to reveal to the world and break our hearts all over again. "Demon Days" in particular works eerily like a self-penned eulogy, something that Forster was quite aware of: "I played it a couple of days after he died," recalled Forster in a recent interview in The Age, "and it was an extraordinary moment because I was the only other person who knew this song existed and I've got this thing, this masterpiece, which is so fragile, because if I'd died three days after him, the song wouldn't exist." It's a tough listen made all the more touching with the brief appearance of a muted chorus and a swooning string arrangement courtesy of Audrey Riley (who handled the same duties on Liberty Belle & the Black Diamond Express). It's also another indiciation, if another were needed, of the brilliance of the Forster/McLennan team.
It's similarly easy to imagine McLennan, not Forster, leading "Let Your Light In, Babe" and "It Ain't Easy", two more songs salvaged from the songwriter's works in progress notebook, and it's no surprise that his shadow spreads across much of the rest of The Evangelist as well. Forster, even though he occasionally collaborated directly with McLennan, is nonetheless a very different singer and songwriter, and his solo albums never hit the highs of McLennan's. Even here, after every great song like "If It Rains", "Pandanus", or the elegiac album-closing tearjerker "From Ghost Town", your mind is primed for McLennan's counterpart response. Aside from the aforementioned songs, they never come, of course, which partly explains why The Evangelist feels a little incomplete. It's not fair to Forster, of course, who rose to the occasion with his warmest and most welcoming solo album. But even beyond the imherant emotional baggage, songs such as "Did She Overtake You" or the slightly bombastic "Don't Touch Anything" still sound like they could have used a pass through someone else's filter.
Yet if anything the album's slight flaws work as sideways tribute to Forster's late friend and partner. "Something's not right, something's gone wrong," sings Forster, channeling McLennan, in "Demon Days". If anything's wrong with The Evangelist, it's not a problem that can be fixed. It's wrong like an empty chair at a banquet, unopened presents at a birthday party, a pile of uncollected mail on the front steps, or an unfinished novel that trails off into who knows where. It's wrong like even our fondest memories, cursed to fade with time.
