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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Overdue re-release of a superb bands superb third album, 29 April 2006
I find myself when reviewing certain albums by certain bands using the words "Criminally neglected" a lot. That's probably because I review a lot of bands who are criminally neglected, not that their being criminally neglected would stand up in court like ....but it should. Anyway a particularly pertinent example of this is The Triffids.
The very first review I wrote for Amazon was for The Traffics "Calenture", a sumptuous collection of bruise deep love songs that is one of my favourite things ever. The album that preceded that while lacking "Calenture,s" blue eyed opulent romanticism was "Born Sandy Devotional " which in it's own more arid yet starkly quixotic way is just as superb. Some would even say it's superior. I would contest them on that but not too vociferously.
The late Davis McComb was a truly gifted performer and writer obsessed with the vastness and landscape of his native Australia .Though this album was actually recorded in London it virtually reeks of the outback .Very rarely does one album so tantalisingly encapsulate the ambience , odours and textures of the geography that inspired it. More than any travel documentary "Born Sandy Devotional" imbibes the listener in what it would be like to experience the places these songs exist in. And what songs they are.
"Seabirds" is one the great opening numbers of an album. "No foreign pair of dark sun glasses can ever shield you from/ the light that pierces your eyelids /the screaming of the gulls". This song enveloped in pedal steel and ominous strings radiates dramatic friction and the lyrics have that ambiguous yet elegiac frisson that McComb seemed to produce at will. "Estuary Bed" follows with more lush pedal steel from Graham Lee and a beautiful languorous middle eight and yet more memorable couplets. "I know your shape/ our limbs entwined/I know your shape, remember mine." "Chicken Killer" has tumultuous guitar and is considered by some as a weak point of the album but it acts as a more buoyant bridge to the emotionally wracked fare that's to come. "Tarrilup Bridge" is a concise wrought suicide note leading to "Lonely Stretch", an epic road song with more dramatic bilious backing seething like cockroaches on a soiled mattress. "Wide Open Road "has McComb hunting down an ex -lover and her new man. "The Sky was big and empty/my chest filled to explode" he intones over hypnotic spiralling percussion. The swaggering chorus of "Life Of Crime" belies it mixture of regret and incipient desire while "Personal Things" is another haunting lament for someone who isn't there anymore, the albums emotional thematic hub. "Stolen Property" while undoubtedly the albums overwhelming blockbuster is a tremendous song, yet it falls momentarily into over wrought melodrama before the tender and touching brilliance of McCombs vocal for the songs conclusion. "Tender is the Night( The Long Fidelity )" is the clumsily titled closer, sung by Jill Birt who isn't a particularly gifted vocalist but her wispy tones quite suit the songs fragile emanation and the way David McComb weaves his way into the song is just magical.
There are extra tracks promised for this album which makes it a must in my house ( I've always owned this on vinyl ) and there are , I believe, plans to re-release their entire back catalogue over the next 18 months with more extra tracks and other impossibly exciting stuff. About ruddy time if you ask me. Few bands do/did organic fervid rock music as well as The Triffids and in David McComb they had one of the most compelling sages on loves choppy waters with a voice to pound your heart like a punch bag. To paraphrase the great man -those drums will roll off in your forehead, those guns will go off in your chest.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another great reissue on Domino...., 7 Jan 2007
Recorded in 1985, `Born Sandy Devotional' followed earlier releases `Treeless Plain' and `Raining Pleasure' heralding a major shift in the creativity and scope of songwriter David McComb and fellow Triffids' Evil Graham Lee, Martyn Casey, Jill Birt, Robert McComb, & Alsy Macdonald. Produced by Gil Norton (Doolittle, Ocean Rain) and the band, `Born Sandy Devotional' was recorded in London and probably should have been the record that introduced them to a wider audience. The Triffids were one of those culty acts in the 1980s that didn't break through and gain commercial success - see The Go-Betweens, Microdisney, The Comsat Angels, The Sound, Crime and the City Solution, American Music Club, Tuxeedomoon - but don't let that stop you now!!
I first heard the Triffids unknowingly - the gorgeous `Bury Me Deep in Love' was used in Neighbours, though failed to break through as a Neighbour-associated track had before in the case of Angry Anderson's lungburstingly dire `Suddenly.' I knew the name, though probably confused them with Thin White Rope or something, but it was purchasing a copy of compilation `Australian Melodrama' for 99p that put me on the path to their records. A fair amount of that compilation stems from this album, while all Triffids is good Triffids, it's probably this or `Calenture' that are their greatest moments. `Calenture' suffers from production of the time, which some dislike - despite my assurances they should put such concerns out of mind!!
The original 10-track album is fantastic, as great a way to spend 35-40 mins as any and one of those great albums from the 1980s, which was a great decade for music: Swordfishtrombones, Fables of the Reconstruction, Fried, Sign'O'the Times, Let It Be, Isn't Anything?, Secrets of the Beehive, Liberty Belle & the Black Diamond Express etc. Think about it!, or don't...so it's that common case that everything on this album is a highlight. Those wild literary lyrics that send those pictures as potent as the album cover into your mind. That music that seems huge, but is the right side of U2-style bombast (though I did think the vocals on `Lonely Stretch' - probably my favourite - sounded like early Jim Kerr! Apologies if I've insulted anyone!!).
Opener `The Seabirds' builds on the orchestral designs Norton was associated with from `Ocean Rain', it seems you can hear everything in here - country guitar, jazzy Waits drumming, chiming guitar that makes the Edge seem dumb as dumb can be. It gets better and better - `Estuary Bed', the catchy `Chicken Killer', the two Jill Birt lead vocals that remind me a bit of Moe Tucker & the Velvets (`Tarrilup Bridge', `Tender is the Night (The Long Fidelity)'. The second half opens with what is probably the Triffids' most well known song, `Wide Open Road', which Triffid (& current Bad Seed/Grinderman-member) Martyn Casey stated had become an anthem to backpackers the world over. Which fits with the song's perfect lyrics...
The Domino reissue, which has been meticulously overseen by Graham Lee and the rest of the band, not only presents the original album with a new improved sound but adds bonus tracks from the era, including the fantastic lost title track which somehow didn't make the album. There are great sleeve notes, both in the standard booklet and the 42-page booklet with the limited edition, featuring great information, handwritten lyrics, photos, and some interesting pointers including what David McComb/the band were reading at the time (Flannery O'Connor, The Last Tycoon, The Clown, The White Hotel) and showing some influences/ideals they were using as markers for this great album: lots of Tom Waits, Cohen's Avalanche, The Boss' Nebraska, From Her to Eternity, Happy Sad, Joy Division's Atmosphere, Little Creatures, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, and several of their own earlier joys I think all should track down...
2006 was a strong year for reissues - the original Nuggets, Faust IV, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Abracadabra, Paris 1919 etc - but Born Sandy Devotional is the one. One of those albums to live by. One of those albums to live to. All tracks written by David McComb. To be followed by In the Pines and the mighty Calenture. Bob Dylan is still wrong to say "Don't Look Back." After 1989's The Black Swan the band split, though there were releases by Blackeyed Susans and some classic solo releases from McComb, which I hope will follow in the next year or so once the Triffids' back-catalogue has been dealt with?
David McComb 17/2/62 - 2/2/99.
Listening to Born Sandy Devotional in 2007 he's never sounded more alive: "Never should have let that precious spirit escape..."
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Should have been massive!, 16 May 2006
Like those other neglected Australians The Go-Betweens, The Triffids were critically acclaimed but failed to break through to the big time. Both bands deserved to be massive & tragically both have lost a singer/songwriter before their time. This is a forgotten 80s classic which deserves its reissue & hopefully will gain a few more fans. The songwriting & musicianship is excellent, both epic & intimate in a way that few bands could get near. Buy it & you won't regret it!
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