After releasing a brilliant single by
the Apartments
on their
Able
label in 1979,
the Go-Betweens
almost added the band's leader
Peter Milton Walsh
to their lineup, but ultimately it didn't work out. "
Walsh
is night," said
Grant McLennan
. "We are day," added
Robert Forster
. After some more false starts,
re-formed
and set about proving the duo right. Signed to
Rough Trade
after impressing them with a demo,
' debut album from 1985,
The Evening Visits...and Stays for Years
is a dark, brooding affair that features
's idiosyncratic vocals and lyrics that hint at major emotional upheavals, or at least some very deep feels.
's biting croon is balanced by layers of jangling acoustic and electric guitars and the occasional strings and horns, with a production style that calls to mind that of his former mate's concurrent work. His songs work best when they are enveloped in a warm bed of sound, as in the lovely ballad "Mr. Somewhere," which was later covered by
This Mortal Coil
, or the spiky "Cannot Tell the Days Apart." When his vocals are pushed too far out front, as on the austere "All the Birthdays," they can be a little off-putting. The brief foray into swampy blues territory ("Speechless with Tuesday") is also not quite playing to the band's strengths. Mostly though, the album is a perfect match of singer and song, with quite a few of the songs coming out even when placed up against those of his peers: "Mr. Somewhere," definitely, but also the bouncy "Great Fool" and the quietly desperate "Sunset Hotel," which kicks the album off in fine
Cohen-esque
style.
signaled the emergence of a major new songwriting talent, and if it took him a while to break through previous to the album's release, it was worth the wait for fans of intelligently crafted, bleedingly emotional pop music. ~ Tim Sendra