More about: The Triffids

Music, at its best, is a writer’s medium. That’s easy enough to forget when you’re caught by a neat little riff or a rhythm that won’t leave your feet alone, but it’s easier still to prove: no matter how they do it, whether through words, music or both, the songs that endure are always the ones that say something. They tell stories we can relate to, and they cut straight to our emotions. With their second full-length album, 'Born Sandy Devotional', The Triffids proved they understood that perfectly. David McComb’s songs – densely packed with potent descriptions, character sketches and insights – were matched by arrangements that captured both the dark sentiments in the words and the uniquely Australian landscapes the stories were rooted in.

'Born Sandy Devotional' is still the record that tells you most about McComb’s ambitions as a lyricist. His songs work together as a coherent whole, creating the best Australian film you’ll never see. But it’s what The Triffids did next that tells you most about his musical goals and the strengths of his band. Neither their third nor fourth album is as tightly focused, or quite as good as the masterpiece they followed, but twenty years later they’re still arresting pieces of music. 'In The Pines' can be seen as one of the purest – and most unusual – examples of the low-budget album. After returning from London to Perth, still unsigned and with 'Born Sandy Devotional' still unreleased, The Triffids decamped to a farm nearly 600km from the city and set up studio in an old shearing shed. The bill for equipment hire came to A$300 and the total for the trip – including food, alcohol and petrol – to just less than $1200.

Though the dark themes that The Triffids always dealt with are still here, the album has little of the wide-open claustrophobia that defined its predecessor. There’s far more of a country feel to the music and, as often as not, pain isn’t expressed so much as exorcised and even celebrated, just as it is in the blues. In The Pines sees The Triffids letting their hair down after a hard and relatively unrewarding stint in London. A cover of Bill Anderson’s 'Once A Day', remade as a drinking song and sung by Graham Lee rather than McComb, might initially seem rather lightweight in comparison to the band’s work, but is actually the raucous heart of the album.

'In The Pines' isn’t what it used to be, though. The re-release hasn’t been remastered so much as reworked. In keeping with the minimal budget, Bruce Callaway’s original mix took just two days, but after holding on to the tapes ever since he has finally been able to give it the attention it deserved. Five extra tracks from the woolshed sessions have also been added in the middle of the CD. Such changes don’t always work but here they transform the album, bringing more weight and depth. Three of these five extras eventually appeared on Calenture, having been held over because the band felt they needed to keep something for their next studio excursion. With all three songs – 'Jerdacuttup Man', 'Trick Of The Light' and 'Blinder By The Hour' – what’s lacking in studio polish is outweighed by the intimacy and ambience. The only track that doesn’t strengthen the album is 'Wish To See No More', which first appeared as a demo on the reissue of 'Born Sandy Devotional' and still feels rather underdone.

The jump in sound quality is remarkable, and though it’s far from being the most obvious change, the most telling is in McComb’s vocals. Improved timing and clarity bring new depth and immediacy to his performance, and to the songs. 'In The Pines' has never sounded so good, so warm or so organic; indeed, it has never been so good. It isn’t a live album, but it is truly alive.

'Calenture', in contrast, was The Triffids’ major label debut and had a budget to match. Initial sessions for the album were recorded with Craig Leon, at an estimated cost of A$50,000. Yet they were aborted three songs in, and the usable part of the recordings boiled down to some backing vocals that appear on the opening track, 'Bury Me Deep In Love'. It’s clear that the right decision was made, though the album – eventually completed with Gil Norton, who also worked on 'Born Sandy Devotional' – is still desperately over-produced. Nowadays, it also sounds far more dated than 'In The Pines'. Though 'Calenture' won The Triffids a fair few new converts, it was released to something rather less than universal acclaim among their existing fans. Plenty wondered if one of the tightest, most visceral bands around was best served by an album with a fair share of pretty baubles and a glossy sheen. Many of us blamed the record company for the change.

Ultimately though, the quality of the songwriting wins through: no matter how it’s presented, there’s no arguing with material like 'Trick Of The Light', 'Blinder By The Hour' and 'Save What You Can'. Like every other Triffids album, 'Calenture' is studded with great songs. Songs that mean something. The album’s structure is almost flawless: the journey here depends a little more on the music and less on the lyrics than was the case for 'Born Sandy Devotional', but it’s no less satisfying for that. The improvement in sound quality is far less pronounced on 'Calenture' than on 'In The Pines', but perhaps because there’s so much happening the overall effect is still profound. The sleek finish is still there, of course, but it’s now far easier to see through. The extra resolution brings individual parts of the recording into sharper focus, and the result is that you can hear the emotion in the performances far more easily. It takes the sceptics among us closer to what we always loved about The Triffids, but it also takes us far closer to what McComb and the band were aiming for.

So ironically enough, the additional disc of rehearsal and studio demos has never been less necessary. But the recordings do prove something important: these songs were always intended to work in the way they’re presented on ‘Calenture’. McComb’s ambition ran deep, and the album was never meant as just another collection of great songs. Where ‘Born Sandy Devotional’ created an authentic vision of the Australian bush, woven through with the darkest stories, ‘Calenture’ has a far grander target. The aim here is nothing less than taking dark, intelligent, literate songwriting right into the mainstream, and on McComb’s terms.

It failed in that, but it failed gloriously. The mainstream just wasn’t ready.

More about: The Triffids