Consumer Guide Album

The Go-Betweens: Before Hollywood [Rough Trade, 1983]
"I've got a feeling, sounds like a fact/It's been around as long as that," goes my favorite hook of the past few months, which is something of an aberration: in the great tradition of post-modern pop these folky-arty Aussies abjure melody much of the time, though the second side does begin to sing after a few plays, and after much longer the textures on the first assume a mnemonic aura as well. A little static for rock and roll, but as poetry reading goes, quite kinetic. B+