Accurately subtitled 'mini-masterpieces 1983-1985', 'Beautiful Waste And Other Songs' collects together the remainder of THE TRIFFIDS' crucial Hot Records releases outside of the 'Treeless Plain', 'Born Sandy Devotional' and 'In The Pines' albums and stands alone as a further essential addition to their wondrous, but unsung canon.
Some of it will already be familiar to long time Triffids aficionados, of course. The first seven tracks comprise 1984's feted 'Raining Pleasure' album and the outstanding John Peel session from late '84 (spawning the colossal 'Field Of Glass') was rightly released as a 12" single at the time: this latter providing an astounding introduction to Dave McComb and co's abilities for this (then) impressionable 17 year old.
Both releases have aged barely a day since. Yes, the selections from 'Raining Pleasure' fight a schizophrenic tug of love between rushes of pure, but idiosyncratic pop (the Gospel-tinged, violin-kissed shimmer of 'Jesus Calling' and the stately, yet manic 'Ballad Of Jack Frost') and the more typical indie-blues lurch of songs like 'Embedded' and the murderous stalk of 'Property Is Condemned', but the results are never less than wholly convincing and when you throw in the theatrical drama of 'Everybody Has To Eat', Jill Birt's arid Mo Tuckerisms on the title track and McComb's magnificent reading of the tragic ol' blues standard 'St. James Infirmary' you have something eminently satisfying even two decades on from the original release.
Arguably even better are the three tracks comprising the 'Field Of Glass' 12". Recorded for John Peel's show in a live and livid capacity, 'Monkey On My Back' and 'Bright Lights Big City' are among The Triffids' heaviest, bug-eyed recordings with murder stuffed under their belts and industrial strength alcohol on their breath. Both stagger around with the intensity you'd normally associate with The Triffids' Australian contemporaries The Moodists and The Scientists and feature McComb crooning through some of his most deranged, but memorable lyrics of all (e.g: "it'll take a strong anaesthetic to keep her away/ nightly I rinse out the blood to destroy the marks she made" - 'Bright Lights, Big City') while the band match him pound for pound with some of their most thunderous playing. Both tracks are phenomenal, yet still dwarfed by the 8-minute psych-pop classic 'Field Of Glass': their very own 'When The Music's Over' which remains as shattering an achievement as when your reviewer first heard it all those years ago.
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Personally, this writer would be more than sated if 'Beautiful Waste' simply comprised these two recordings, but in typically exhaustive Domino fashion, 'Beautiful Waste' rounds things out with a further series of great archival treasures like the semi-obscure 'Lawson Street Infirmary' mini-album from 1984 and the 'Beautiful Waste' single itself. 'Lawson..' was actually released by a band of the same name at the time, but it's a (very) thinly disguised Triffids release in all but name and is basically a dry run for the intimate 'In The Pines' album in that its' six tracks have a predominantly knockabout, country-influenced flavour and a live, first-take sensibility about them. This is fine in itself and the record spawns several hidden gems courtesy of 'Figurine', 'Not The Marrying Kind' and the more typical, violin-led 'Mercy' which is easily good enough to have figured on 'Raining Pleasure'.
The final three tunes include the previously unreleased 'Native Bride' (probably from 1983 judging by the 'Treeless Plain'-style vibe), the grand pop deisgn of the 1984 single 'Beautiful Waste' itself and 'Dear Miss Lonely Hearts' which first reared its' psychotically pretty head as part of the 'Wide Open Road' single but was again surely recorded earlier. As always with McComb, love, devotion, obsession and literate psychosis all form part of a greater whole and even these lesser known crumbs from The Triffids table are the equal of a substantial banquet where most bands are concerned.
'Beautiful Waste', then, more than lives up to its' billing as the receptacle for a series of The Triffids' album-bridging 'mini-masterpieces'. Yes, it still makes this writer sad to think there can be no more from David McComb, but if ever there was a back catalogue that deserved to be brought in from the cold and given proper belated comfort it's surely this band's. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Domino.
(http://www.myspace.com/thetriffids)
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