The Go-Betweens have always seemed to have one foot in the past. Their very name alludes to L.P. Hartley’s memory-haunted novel “The Go-Between.” Their poetic lyrics are packed with phrases like “it all came back” and “another time in another room.”

“Oceans Apart” (Yep Roc Records), the Australian group’s new album, is its third and best since Robert Forster and Grant McLennan reunited in 1999 after a 10-year layoff.

Forster and McLennan, who split singing and songwriting duties, formed the Go-Betweens after meeting as students in 1978. Their debut, 1981’s “Send Me a Lullaby,” had a wiry, jangly sound like that of early Cure records or the jittery Scottish band Josef K. On 1983’s excellent “Before Hollywood,” they forged the core of their mature sound by tempering New Wave astringency with delicate folk. Four additional albums only improved on “Hollywood” and would be an important influence on the wistful literary pop of later bands such as Belle and Sebastian. (JetSet Records re-released “Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express,” “Tallulah,” and “16 Lovers Lane” in superb two-CD sets last year.)

“Oceans Apart,” like previous albums, is split evenly between Forster and McLennan’s songs. Though still remarkably complementary, their styles have diverged over the years. Forster’s spare compositions and fragmentary lyrics give him room to exercise his dynamic voice. He pushes his singing toward stylization, biting off line ends and enunciating almost to the point of harshness, as on the album’s first track,”Here Comes a City.”

It’s a brisk catalogue of views from a train window (“The sandwich maker the trolley-car pusher / Here comes a city”) whose choppy, rumbling verses are a muscular update of the band’s early sound. Like “City,” the excellent “Born to a Family” displays Forster’s gift for phrasing. Over cheerful strumming, he intones, “Born to a family / Of honest workers,” rounding off each line as if it were a discrete pronouncement and giving this otherwise plain sentiment real emotional heft.

McLennan’s songs are fuller and more melodic. His voice is open and direct where Forster’s is aloof, but a tinge of weariness neutralizes any blandness. Sandwiched between “City” and “Family” is McLennan’s “Finding You,” which swells from chiming acoustic guitars to a smoothly sweeping chorus that features a sing-along folk refrain.

Draped in billowing synths, “No Reason To Cry” is an unremarkable interlude before McLennan’s best song on the album, “Boundary Rider,” a quietly bleak sketch of an aging rancher on patrol. Half-talking over rolling guitars, McLennan affectingly evokes the bluff wisdom gleaned from years of work: “Some days you ride it hard / To stop them getting out / Then comes the day you ride / To stop them getting in.”

In the album’s uneven second half, Forster pairs the would-be epic “Darlinghurst Nights,” a reminiscence of youth too slight to merit six minutes, with “Lavender,” an easygoing country track marred by his affectation of a grating twang. Built on reverb-drenched drums and a guitar line with a muted glow, McLennan’s “The Statue” is one of the album’s highlights. Dreamily abstract lyrics, which imagine an emotionally distant lover as a statue, dovetail perfectly with the music’s dazed shimmer.

“The Mountains Near Dellray,” Forster’s sweet ode to pastoral contentment (“Acres and a farm / Music in the barn / It’s no struggle”), closes the album with a note of renewed appreciation of present pleasures. “When you make a wish / And you get the wish / Never let it go,” he sings. Let’s hope the resurgent Go-Betweens never do.

The Go-Betweens play June 10 at the Mercury Lounge (217 E. Houston Street, between Essex and Ludlow, 212-260-4700) and June 11 at Southpaw (125 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-230-0236).