Triffids
(Domino)
Australia has been a nurturing ground for iconoclastic rock ‘n' roll ever since the ‘60s, beginning with the Easybeats and subsequently moving forward through AC/DC, the Bad Seeds, Men at Work and scores of other bands who achieved varying degrees of fame and notoriety. However none were more deserving - or as sadly unappreciated -- as the Triffids, a group that purveyed acinematic view specific to its Down Under environs. Few other outfits captured the sweep and spectacle of the rugged Australian Outback as superbly or as specifically, while creating such an indelible imprint in the process.
It's to Domino Records' credit then that they've opted to give the band a second look, courtesy of a series of reissues that have expanded the Triffids' original offerings and packed them with bonus songs, unreleased tracks, liner notes that reveal personal insights from surviving band members and other highly coveted accoutrements. Last year, the label reconfigured three of the band's seminal efforts - Born Sandy Devotional, In The Pines and Calenture, the former being the album that originally introduced them to American audiences. Now Domino has opted to up the ante with further forays into the Triffids catalog, specifically those recordings that found the group expanding their palette and creating some of the most sophisticated recordings of their career.
This round of reissues bookends the band's career, from their earliest outings to the final album considered their ultimate masterpiece. The Triffids' sound can be effectively documented on a progression of rare EPs -- Raining Pleasure, Lawson Square Infirmary and Field of Glass -- all recorded early on, between 1983 and 1985. Banded together under the collective title Beautiful Waste and Other Songs, every track originally released on these three EPs is now available on a single CD. The initial sequence from Raining Pleasure, spearheaded by rollicking "Jesus Calling," spotlights singer/songwriter David McComb's penchant for parlaying a croon into a swoon, taking a stance that's by turns somber and sedate, testy and turbulent. The songs culled from Lawson Square Infirmary find the Triffids playing the role of down-home denizens, rambling from the woozy hoedown "Figurine --" which sounds like Eddie Cochrane plying Hank Williams -- and the jaunty "Mother Silhouette" to the rustic, back porch designs of "Mercy" and "Crucifixion." The Field of Glass set wraps the disc up on a darker note, with McComb channeling Jim Morrison over a musical backdrop that recalls the Velvets, Echo and the Bunnymen, Nick Cave and the early Airplane in a muddled, turgid brew. It's scary stuff, a precursor of the more ominous application that would follow later on.
With that varying pastiche, Treeless Plain, the Triffids' full-length 1983 debut, was the first recording to fully flesh out their sound. While the emphasis continued to be on McComb's dry delivery, the instrumental arrangements moved along at a good clip, particularly the propulsive undercarriage steering songs like "Branded," "Old Ghostrider" and "I Am A Lonesome Hobo," a Dylan composition that became one of the first and only covers finding a way into their repertoire. "Old Ghostrider" and five other tunes - four of them taken from that first album -are reprised as bonus tracks on this reissue, extracted from a live performance recorded immediately prior to their debut. They find the band in an upbeat mood, enthused, exuberant and seemingly ready to take on the world.
Unfortunately those expectation were never fully fulfilled. The Triffids' trajectory culminated just six years later with The Black Swan, a sprawling opus that successfully summed up the band's sound in all their elegiac glory. Cinematic in its wide-eyed overview, it found chief McComb writing songs from an arched perspective and a dramatic motif. "Too Hot to Move, Too Hot to Think" sets up the scenario, via a parched perspective that illuminates the vast and eerie expanse of the Australian hinterland. The sinewy, half-spoken groove of "Falling Over You" might have found a compatible niche on today's airwaves alongside the most atmospherically inclined rappers, as ironic as that might otherwise seem. Likewise, the calculated croon of "Go Home Eddie" and "Blackeyed Susan" (not so coincidentally, the name of McComb's next band), as well as the mellow love songs, "New Years Greeting" and "Fairytale Love," combine to provide an emotional embrace. An extra disc of demos and excised offerings enhances that welcome return, albeit it in more stripped down settings. It provides a worthy wrap to this Triffids triple play, not to mention a welcome return for a band that remains as intriguing as ever.
Standout tracks: "Jesus Calling," "Too Hot to Move, Too Hot To Think," "Old Ghostrider," LEE ZIMMERMAN
