The Triffids – BORN
SANDY DEVOTIONAL
Born Sandy Devotional doesn’t really blow you away. Not on first listen. Rather,
it overpowers you with toughness and emotional intensity. So that the closer
“Tender Is The Night (The Long Fidelity)” sounds almost lightweight when it
beautifully brings it all to a close.
There’s a fascinating
booklet in the CD version I have. It includes photos of Dave McComb’s notebook
with ideas and rewrites and the general feeling that he was doing something
monumental. That this was the
Triffids’ album. That it would be as close to experiencing Australia (without
actually going there) as possible. That it would capture all the vastness and
all the isolation.
Lonely stretches and
wide open roads. The thoughts he put into that. The work. The determination.
But above all – this is a collection of great songs. Each one a complete
Australian classic. It’s incredible that a song like “Personal Things” was
included at the last moment. Dave’s vocals and the piano could go on forever
for all I care. I love it to death.
The whole album, really. The
spiritual intensity of “Lonely Stretch”; the morbid, unsettling beauty of
“Tarrilup Bridge”; the propulsive energy of “Life Of Crime”. And the feeling
that against that vastness – you are a fly. You are nothing. And how the time flies.
‘As fast’, Dave sings, ‘as a chicken with no head’.
