The second instalment in Domino's on-going and much needed TRIFFIDS catalogue re-issue series presents us with two further magnificent mid-80s recordings from this elusive Aussie outfit who - in any vaguely fair world - ought to have been one of the biggest names of the past 30 years.
Production-wise, 1986's 'In The Pines' and its' much-anticipated follow-up, 'Calenture' (1987) are the very epitome of polar opposites, but in terms of quality, both are utterly essential items and ripe for re-discovery for those of you who weren't around to absorb their brilliance the first time around. As for the rest of us, well - as with the arrival of last's year's re-issue of the 'Born Sandy Devotional' album - we can only rub our hands with glee and immerse ourselves all over again.
It's easy to view 'In The Pines' as both a reaction to its' cinematic predecessor 'Born Sandy Devotional' and also a C-86 era take on Dylan & The Band's informal, but largely terrific 'Basement Tapes' in the sense that the album was recorded in the princely confines of a sheep-shearing shed out in the wide blue yonder of the band's native Western Australia. As the original sleeve notes dutifully record, the liquor purchased for "$340 from Hopetoun/ Ravensthorpe hotels" was the most expensive item on the bill and altogether the recording invoice barely passed $1000 Australian dollars. But to condemn the album for its' informal, club-house recording atmosphere and stripped-back, semi-acoustic feel would be to miss out on a fantastic set of songs regardless of background.
Indeed, this expanded, 18-track version of the album demonstrates that 'In The Pines' was very much the sketchbook that the following year's ambitious 'Calenture' would be filled in from. 'ITP' presents us with dustier, but still fully-formed and entirely fab versions of 'Calenture' stand-outs such as 'Blinder By The Hour', 'Jerdacuttup Man' and 'Hometown Farewell Kiss' (still known as 'One Soul Less On Your Fiery List' here) whilst also dipping its' toes into country-roots waters ('She's Sure The Girl I Love', the delicious, mandolin-led title track and the joyous, slightly school's-out version of Bill Anderson's 'Once A Day') and occasionally swimming back to more familiar broody rock shores when songs like 'Kathy Knows' and the menacing 'Just Might Fade Away' prowl around. Yes, a few tunes like '25 To 5' and the brutally honest 'Only One Life' are barely more than thumbnails and there's a slightly seat-of-the-pants aspect to songs like the desperate 'Keep Your Eyes On The Hole', but with David McComb in typically charismatic vocal form and the band responding gloriously to the "nail-it-in-the-first-few-takes...hey-let's-try-it-this-way" approach, then you have a crankily wonderful album that both exists in its' own time and sounds truly timeless. Wonderful stuff and then some.
After wrong-footing many of us with 'ITP', The Triffids then re-united with Bunnymen (and future Pixies/ Foo Fighters) producer Gil Norton for the opulent grandeur of 1987's 'Calenture': the widescreen marvel most of us had suspected would probably follow the advances made by 'Born Sandy Devotional'. Produced with considerable finesse by Norton and featuring plentiful helpings of strings, pianos and backing vocals, it is indeed the pinnacle of McComb's songwriting aspirations, but the huge sound couching the beautiful 'Bury Me Deep In Love', the credits-rolling splendour of 'Save What You Can' and the majestic 'Hometown Farewell Kiss' is no less than these gorgeous songs deserve.
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Besides, to simply peg 'Calenture' as The Triffids' 'Spectorian' production number is to miss the bigger picture, for 'Calenture' also finds room for bright, radio-embracing pop tunes like 'Trick Of The Light', 'Holy Water' (FM-busting grace with bells on if ever there was) and Jill Birt's touchingly under-estimated 'Open For You', not to mention a brace of McComb's quintessentially dark narrative songs like 'Kelly's Blues', the gripping 'Vagabond Holes' and 'Jerdacuttup Man' ("I live under glass in the British museum/ I am wrinkled and black, I am 10, 000 years/ I once lost in business, I once lost in love/I took a hard fall and I never got up") which is surely the most sympathetic song ever written from the point of view of a murder victim preserved for centuries in a peat bog.
There's also a generous selection of additional tunes and out-takes on offer. CD1 concludes with a brace of further impressive tracks recorded with producer Victor Van Vugt for B-sides and while these are a little lighter and more upbeat, both the frisky, Dylan-ish pop of 'Baby, Can I Walk You Home?' and the unexpected, but successful dance-influenced 'Love The Fever' are surefire winners and the amusingly-titled 'Bad News Always Reminds Me Of You' is almost big enough to join its' widescreen cousins on 'Calenture' itself.
The 'alternative' 'Calenture' portrayed by CD2, though, is almost worth the price of admission alone. Although rawer and harder in design, the serrated edges displayed by these already-finished and poised demo versions of songs that would make the final track listing are great in themselves, with the rockier landscape lending itself especially well to songs like 'Vagabond Holes' and a particularly malicious 'Kelly's Blues.' The songs that weren't demo-ed ('Unmade Love' and 'Holy Water') are replaced by a couple of fine and typically idiosyncratic McComb pop-rockers in the likeably immediate 'Burned' and 'There Must Be A Curse On Me', which sounds uncannily like it could also be a castaway from an updated version of the Velvets' 'Loaded' album. And that, my friends, is no bad thing at all.
Of course, The Triffids story doesn't end with the release of 'Calenture' because they still had the slightly lopsided, but inspired 'Black Swan' to make in 1989 before they imploded, but this writer is hoping that this one and the posthumous live album 'Stockholm' may be next in line for the Domino re-issue honours (hint hint). Whether that's the case or not, though, you really must make haste to hear these 'sister' albums by perhaps Australia's finest. Disparate they may be, sound-wise, but their spirit and emotional content remains joined at the hip and together they are both re-issues made in heaven and a credit to an enormously-talented songwriter who this reviewer still misses like hell.
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