Consumer Guide Album

Grant McLennan: Intermission: The Best of the Solo Recordings 1990-1997 [Beggars Banquet, 2007]
McLennan's fatal heart attack in May, 2006, ended Australia's Go-Betweens, a group nearly three decades old that after ten years off had reconvened convincingly in 2000, releasing three albums that promised many more. Twin compilations from their down period can't replace the follow-ups we'll never hear. McLennan, who wrote more easily than Forster--his best album was a double, Horsebreaker Star, while one of Forster's was all covers--gets a surefire album-by-album selection marred only by somewhat static production--the Go-Betweens were always interactive. There's ample proof of his pop gift in the wry, tender, gorgeous opener, "Haven't I Been a Fool," and unending evidence of his miraculously solid tunecraft thereafter. [Rolling Stone: 4.5]