There you go, Matt Price of The Australian, here’s another Australian band for you. Musically the Go-Betweens seem similar to The Triffids, a kind of pleasant and unchallenging pop-rock for the most part that was okay but didn’t especially thrill me. They reminded me of some of the mid-Eighties Scottish bands as well, the likes of Orange Juice and similar.
I think I was hoping for a more distinctive sound because the album lists Amanda Brown on violin, oboe, and a range of other instruments, but these only come through on a few tracks - Was There Anything I Could Do is the only one where the violin really seems to come into its own and works nicely, a bit of an Echo Beach feel to it. I’m Alright features Brown’s oboe prominently and has a bit of a circular motif to the music and feels like it ought to be in an indie film. These were, for me, the strongest tracks, otherwise it tended to be focussed on guitarist/vocalists Robert Forster and Grant McLennan.
I have a suspicion that there are some hidden subtleties to the music that are easily overlooked on a (slightly distracted) first listen, and from what I’ve read the band were not entirely happy with the production – there's a remastered version of the album that is maybe closer to their original intent and showcases the individuals better. I wanted to like this more but it did fall a bit flat for me.
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