The Triffids – ‘Born Sandy Devotional’ (Domino) Released 12/06/06

Courtesy of Domino, probably the smartest independent around just now, The Triffids are back in the game. And not a moment too soon: music of this quality and depth should never be out of print. Inspired by the Pistols but influenced more by the Velvets, Dylan and Talking Heads, The Triffids formed in Perth, a city which prides itself on being the most isolated on the planet. Their early years were marked by a series of increasingly assured cassettes, singles, EPs and albums: good, competent stuff that you’d probably still be glad to discover, but nothing truly spectacular. That changed the moment they released this, their second full-length album. It’s a recording that marked David McComb out as one of the most talented songwriters of his or any other generation and The Triffids as a band that could keep pace with his vaulting ambition.

Just a few years before this McComb had been writing arresting but ultimately insubstantial songs like ‘My Baby Thinks She’s A Train’; now he was capturing the feel of a continent and the vagaries of the human heart. 'Born Sandy Devotional’ is a dark work, looking not so much at love as what happens when love breaks down. Violence is often just below the surface. McComb’s writing isn’t particularly concerned with narrative, preferring instead to emphasise insight and expression. Yet each of the songs here has its own arc, its own progression. While McComb’s intense, evocative language provides snapshots of an event or a place, it’s the music that unites these images into some sort of story, providing the ebb and flow and the light and thunder.

And rarely have words and music combined to such overwhelming effect as they do on ‘Lonely Stretch’, the centrepiece on ‘Born Sandy Devotional’. Here as elsewhere, McComb’s lyrics are ambiguous, leaving the listener to instil meaning. But it’s difficult, now, to listen to ‘Lonely Stretch’ without thinking of the Peter Falconio case or the backpacker murders. “Land was so flat, could well have been ocean/No distinguishing feature in any direction/I took her down inch-by-inch to the floor/And I pointed her nose through a crack in the door/Fingering my silver St Christopher/And saving my empty shells for her…” This is a song with a murderous image of the outback at its heart and that’s reflected perfectly in the furious crescendos of the music. ‘Lonely Stretch’ apparently looks out at the world through the eyes of a monster, yet there’s empathy here as well as terror. The other songs don’t reach quite the same depths or heights, but none is much more than a knife’s blade behind.

In its remastered version, cleaner and sharper than the original CD in every regard, all ten of the ‘first edition’ songs take on new depth and still more emotional impact. With intent listening ‘Born Sandy Devotional’ is an album that can wear you out, demanding a period of silence afterwards, but the new CD trades your hard-earned downtime for nine extra tracks. Though the core of ‘Born Sandy Devotional’ should be of interest to anyone with ears and a heart, the extra tracks – mostly sketches of songs, works in progress – are really just for fans. They’re fascinating, not least because they show McComb experimenting in musical territory much closer to Nick Cave’s, but far from essential.

Ultimately, like desert sand covering tracks, time claims everything. Thankfully, though, it hasn’t yet claimed The Triffids.