Robert Forster: The Evangelist
Spunk, EMI
******
By Andrew P Street
With the tragic passing of Grant McLennan, Robert Forster has been forcibly returned to life as a solo artist. It's a hefty loss: to our ears Forster's impressionistic storytelling and wavering voice has been most effective when leavened by the more conventionally poppy McLennan material (exactly as McLennan's potentially saccharine melodies were salted up nicely by Forster's spicier moments).
The ghost of McLennan, therefore, had hung over albums like Calling From A Country Phone long before there was a more literal ghost to hang over The Evangelist, especially on the stately opener ‘If It Rains' and the gorgeously simply ‘Demon Days', whose repeated lines "Something's not right / Something's gone wrong" seem a perfect fit for the final song the pair wrote together.
That's not to suggest that The Evangelist is anything approaching a eulogy, though: ‘Padanus' is a mid-paced rocker, ‘Let Your Light In, Babe' is powered by a spry madolin and the magisterial ‘Don't Touch Anything' is a Hammond-driven country strum.It's both his best solo album yet and further proof that, following three excellent post-reformation GBs albums, Forster's creative renaissance has yet to slow down.
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