Robert Forster: The Candle and the Flame review – bittersweet songs with added resonance

The veteran US critic Robert Christgau once called Robert Forster and Grant McLennan of the Go-Betweens the greatest songwriting partnership working (it was the 1980s at the time). But the Australian band never made it big. McLennan is no longer with us.

Forster, meanwhile, has a body of work attesting to his continued wry excellence, his songs replete with clear-eyed craft and emotional heft. But The Candle and the Flame, his eighth solo work, has added resonance. Mid-pandemic, Forster’s partner, Karin Bäumler, was diagnosed with cancer. Forster’s songs pre-date that diagnosis, and the chemo and the surgery. But as is the way of songwriting – witness the foreshadowing of Nick Cave’s Skeleton Key (2016), for instance – Forster’s songs examined healing, his love for Bäumler, and unexpected happenings “round the bend”. Forster was almost too embarrassed to reveal one song: She’s a Fighter.

Recording these tracks was a form of recovery for the entire family; the Forster offspring, Louis (of the Goon Sax) and Loretta, lend their guitar skills, and Bäumler provides backing vocals, violin and xylophone. The sound is ascetic, with Forster’s core bittersweetness amplified by the spartanness of the home studio setup. Perhaps this generous album’s biggest theme is the passage of time, and recognising distances travelled.