Pitchfork

Once upon a time, everything the local "modern rock" station played sounded like The Friends of Rachel Worth. Before Papa Roach, before the Presidents of the United States of America, before even the Toadies, the likes of the Lightning Seeds, Lloyd Cole, and the Blue Aeroplanes dominated the alternative airwaves. I'm not going to attempt some kind of authoritative history of the era, since I didn't get a chance to exercise my 12 year-old critical skills that often before Nirvana broke. As I recall it, though, there were lots of keyboard-augmented, mid-tempo British (and faux-British) bands, tempered only by the occasional Jane's Addiction outburst.

The Go-Betweens were better than that scene, and content to be Australian. But their sound wasn't fundamentally different from many bands in the post-new wave/ pre-grunge era. When Robert Forster and Grant McLennan released the first Go-Betweens album in 1981, their smart, organic approach to pop was no doubt refreshing. Still, by the time they disbanded in 1989, there were numerous aspirants to the clever pop throne, and even if those bands never wrote songs quite as well as the Go-Betweens, they often sold more records.

The album opens on a high note with McLennan's "Magic in Here," a tuneful, bittersweet anthem with a propulsive bass line. But while 11 years have passed since the last Go-Betweens album saw release, the band's sound hasn't changed significantly. Yes, Forster and McLennan recruited a good percentage of the northwest indie scene to appear on this record (Elliott Smith, Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney, Sam Coomes of Quasi, and Janet Weiss of, erm, both), but their presence is largely undetectable. "The Clock" is a notable exception, beginning with an unmistakable edgy Brownstein riff, but the song quickly retreats into wistful jangle-pop. Even when Tucker contributes her normally explosive vocals to "Going Blind," her harmonies with McLennan evoke Papas Fritas more than punk rock.

I'm not deluded. I didn't expect the Go-Betweens to start rocking just because they hung out in Portland for a little while. In fact, "German Farmhouse," the most aggressive song on the album, is easily its least appealing. When the aging Forster makes a shaky attempt at bravado and earnestly croons, "There was a rumor that Pavarotti would sing there/ To raise funds for a music school, but then the whole thing just vanished into thin air/ I said, thin air," it's just too much to take.

Forster's songwriting, in fact, proves consistently disappointing. "Spirit" and "When She Sang about Angels," a tribute to Patti Smith, strive for meaningful sentiment, but Forster's awkward phrasing makes it difficult to listen to without a smirk. "When she sang about a boy/ Kurt Cobain/ I thought what a shame/ It wasn't about/ Tom Verlaine." Uh, what? It's dispiriting to see the composer of gems like "Spring Rain" and "The House That Jack Kerouac Built" in such poor form.

For a band returning from a decade-long sabbatical, these guys are surprisingly spry. Their consistency is also, to some degree, their downfall, since they still sound uncannily mid-'80s. And whereas past Go-Betweens records, like 1984's Spring Hill Fair and 1988's 16 Lovers Lane, have maintained their charm after the passage of more than a decade, The Friends of Rachel Worth comes off as a relic of another era. New generations of Aussie pop bands have emerged since those early days, and the wit and harmonies of the Lucksmiths and the subtle melancholy of Sodastream sound fresher and more relevant now. But even past their prime, the Go-Betweens are still better than anything on present alternative radio playlists.