Robert Forster: The Evangelist

Ok, I couldn't resist. The thing is: songsfordirtylovers posted it some days ago, but I don't like its version so much (there is some annoying noise, some kind of buzz, at the beginning of each song), so I realised that my version (although it's only @ 160 k) sounds a bit better to me (at least it has no buzz).
So, I know it may sound weird when we're talking about mp3's, but I like listening to my music fine, meaning that the quality should be quite good. That's also the reason why I use pretty good headphones with my iPod, and -more important of all-when I find the music meaningful I always hit the record shop for the CD (mp3's are no way nearly as good as CDs, and I can't see why I should spend money for some 128k -i.e. very low quality- itunes stuff).

Of course I'm totally missing the point here. Which is: "The Evangelist"is very good. I used to have some difficulties listening to RF's solo albums in the past, but I slowly got used to them, and I learned to love them (although never as much as GB's albums, and I also tend to prefer McLennan's solo output), in particular "Danger in the past" (I still think the title-track is one of the best thing he's ever done -isn't it creepy? And isn't it incredible to hear something like that from Forster? I can't imagine any other song of his resembling it).
But "The Evangelist" struck me. It is -yes, it is- a logical follow-up to the last 3 GB's LP's, but not quite: it doesn't set its goals as high as "Oceans apart" (which, to me, was a great promise for what was going to come and, alas, it never will: more rock-oriented Go-Betweens, working much more like a true rock band than in the previous two albums. Somehow the wait was over: GB's were not only Forster & McLennan but a real live-kicking band. Maybe different from the 80's line-up -be it a 3 or 4 or 5 people line-up- yet you could see it was the work of more than 2 people that came together for the album), but it is an excellent Robert Forster album. Maybe his best. And those three songs written by McLennan may make the difference: I can't say yet if Demon Days is one of his best songs, as Forster says, but it kills me indeed.

So definetely Grant is very present here. His words, his music, and references to him are easily detectable by fans: the 3 chords-sequence in Let your light in, babe and Robert's numerous hommages to his partner are nearly all over the album (the -moving, intense, heartbreaking- goodbye to a lost friend in the closing From ghost town, the words of It aint' easy...).
I'd probably better stop now or I could go on and on talking about "The Evangelist". That's how I love it, I suppose.

PS
I inserted the lyrics in the mp3's too.

The Evangelist