Pitchfork

After nearly 30 years of creating intelligent pop, Go-Betweens co-leaders Robert Forster and Grant McLennan are alive and very much kicking-- obscene levels of long-cultivated cultdom still intact. "We're about the last band in the world that has not shot a DVD," Robert Forster announces between songs on DVD/CD combo That Striped Sunlight Sound, "So we're doing one tonight, right here"-- which he of course pronounces "hee-ya," in reference to the Tivoli Theatre in the band's hometown of Brisbane, Australia-- before diving appropriately into "Streets of Your Town."

Reenacting here both the times they first immortalized looping entreaties to "shi-i-i-iine," and complaints that, "I still don't know what I'm here for," it's still clear what they're here for: 2005's Oceans Apart improved greatly on the Go-Betweens' previous comeback effort, and provides That Striped Sunlight Sound with its peppiest tracks: "Here Comes a City", "Boundary Rider", "Born to a Family", and "Finding You" are all extra-robust Red Bull anthems.

But if pop's longtime sunshine-companionship is warranted, it makes tons of sense to call these vets the arbitrators of some striped sunlight sound. This live album comes like midday sun filtering through mini-blinds: barely-there slits, perfectly understated kind of cool (temperature-wise) sunny days alongside major chances of rain. And it comes with proof of what the Go-Betweens do best: the opposite of cloying-- perfectly aware, grown-up, and bittersweet. The low-key "Black Mule" and "Clouds" wouldn't otherwise resemble sold-out show material, but here-- spouted not from the mouths of babes but full-grown old dudes-- they're perfect, somehow. Sure we could gripe about the lack of favorites (where's "Dive for Your Memory"?), but let's be grateful for what this is: After a long dry spell, "Spring Rain" has been a long time coming: "Don't know where I'm going/ Don't know where it's blowing/ But I know it's finding you."

"You" meaning us, of course. Hand-clapped, whistled interims are proof that no band is an island, and the Go-Betweens are no exception to the rule: On That Striped Sunlight Sound, fans and cheesy concert-cheers are as indispensable as the guitars themselves. While those who accuse the band of overcultishness might cite the record's idiosyncratic and nerdy overload-- the Go-Bees, after all, perform debut 1978 single "Karen", call "James Joyce" the "right choice," and namedrop great Russians in that dead-on line from Oceans Apart ("Why do people who read Dostoyevsky look like Dostoyevsky?")-- there's something bigger and farther-reaching than geek rock at work here. Here's what potential and happiness sounds like in the face of rain, and God knows what else.