Bright Yellow Bright Orange [CD]

... but I cant believe no one has given this five stars yet. No surprises, but if youve hit a groove why change? It sounds like they could carry on making albums like this indefinitely, and I for one hope they do. Pure joy!

Another fine offering from The Go-Betweens, but lacking in the overall excitement of either ‘The Friends Of Rachel Worth’ or ‘Oceans Apart’.

This album is unlikely to disappoint any existing Go-Between fan, but for ‘entry level’ I’d perhaps start elsewhere and come back to this one later.

Its all relative though - many bands would kill for songs of this quality !

The first thing to say, is that the eighth Go-Betweens album, is the most low-key Go-Betweens album. Yet it is also one of the very best. It is not, like 16 Lovers Lane, bursting with great melodies. Everything here is restrained and considered. Each song weaves its own subtle magic. This is a Go-Betweens album that will sound great on the fiftieth listen, whereas Friends Of Rachel Worth perhaps won't. Not to dismiss the previous album, which was the comeback album, but it had its highs and lows, the clear low being McLennan's vacuous 'Going Blind' (probably Grant's worst ever lyric). The highs were Forster's 'He Lives My Life' and 'When She Sang About Angels', and McLennan's 'Magic In Here' and 'Orpheus Beach'. McLennan showed with those two songs that he was still capable of great songwriting, which he only showed on rare occasions during his solo years. However, it was the B-side of Going Blind - 'Locust Girls' - that really showed that Grant still had the magic. And his five offerings on the new album are amongst the best he's ever done. Any McLennan doubters - and I was one - will be fervent believers after the first listen of the new album. He's writing songs with complete integrity again. They are not drenched in melody, like past efforts, but they are great songs nevertheless. The character spoken of in 'Mrs Morgan' will already be familiar to McLennan aficionados, having been mentioned in the Jack Frost song, 'Trapeze Boy'. Mrs Morgan has been busy since then telling fortunes, then leaking her clients' secrets to all and sundry. One is left to wonder at the meaning of the beautiful, elegiac refrain: 'She never wanted/She never wanted to see the rain'. It's one of Grant's minor masterworks - he has always had the ability to portray touching provincial scenes - think of Cattle And Cane. 'Poison In The Wall' is one of Grant's best introspective pop songs. It's got the kind of radiant refrain that his songs are well known for. And this track glows like all the best Go-Betweens moments. As for Robert's five contributions, the best is the opener, 'Caroline And I' which is a hearbreaking pop song about teenage love. 'In Her Diary' is elegant, but perhaps not melodic enough to be a true Forster classic - extremely beautiful though, with mournful but distant strings. 'Too Much Of One Thing'- a Forsteresque song title if ever there was one - could probably be described as Dylanesque, which could be applied to quite a few of Forster's songs, but that would be a lazy comparison. It is the longest track on the album, but again suffers somewhat from the absence of a refrain. Nevertheless, it makes its mark through persistence more than anything, helped out by a superb Forster lyric, and McLennan gets to sing a verse on this song, which takes one back pleasingly to the Before Hollywood period. If one were going to place this album alongside any other, though, it would perhaps be Spring Hill Fair. It does not have that album's raw energy, but at the same time, it too is liable to be underrated by anyone but the Go-Betweens' devoted followers. This is an album for them more than the casual listener. Forster has perhaps lost some of the melodic gift he manifested during the eighties, and on the first couple of solo albums, but 'Make Her Day' is a very good, understated pop song from him: vintage Go Betweens, in fact. The final Forster offering, 'Something For Myself', is the most disappointing: it doesn't really go anywhere; there's no real melody, and one is liable to ask: 'where is the refrain, Robert?'; it seems to be a malaise that Robert is suffering from at this time. Perhaps he does not feel the need anymore to write choruses, but pop music always needs choruses, and the Go Betweens have always been a pop group, albeit a profoundly advanced one. Something For Myself is moderately enjoyable, but at the same, one waits in vain for it to take off, and one is inevitably disappointed . . . like watching a film with no payoff. Fortunately, the album ends in strong fashion with McLennan's short piano-led number, Unfinished Business - another minor classic. It's a shame that Forster didn't totally come to the party here, as he is probably the most underrated songwriter of the past twenty years, but he does not really do his great talent justice on this album. He is ALWAYS good, but only 'Caroline and I' is truly great here. It is McLennan's offerings that hold the work together. Be warned though: this is the McLennan of Liberty Belle, not the McLennan of 16 Lovers Lane. That is a very good thing for the hardcore fans; perhaps less so for the newcomer. Grant's best songs - Cattle And Cane, The Wrong Road, Dusty In Here - have possessed a subtle majesty, and one senses that majesty is back in place here, after a long absence. This Go Betweens album is a strong, cohesive affair, and for that reason is better than Tallulah or Rachel Worth. It's not Liberty Belle, but nothing else could be. It is after Liberty Belle, though, the most sober and profound incarnation of the Go Betweens. Nothing here is fast; nothing is light-hearted. There is nothing here that could pose any threat to the charts; nothing that's going to inspire a mass singalong. All ten numbers are suffused with a twilight melancholy. The Go Betweens' faithful will hold this album to their hearts, and the rest of the world will not notice. It is how it must be, after all. It is a private heaven; a private zone of reflection. The most intelligent pop group in history are back in their truest identity. As sober guides of the intellect and heart.