Search - The Triffids :: The Black Swan

A FAIRYTALE LOVE

C.C.TURNER | WATFORD, HERTS United Kingdom | 04/26/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Music affects us in strange ways. I don't know why I like this record more than any other, why it seems effortlessly to soar beyond the efforts of Dylan, The Beatles, R.E.M. - anyone you care to mention - but I have lived with this record for 11 years now and still love it as much as the day I first bought it. This is the greatest record ever made. It has everything - opera, orchestras, drumbeats, jagged indie rock - it's as if David McComb took everything that was ever good from the whole history of music and reassembled it for 'The Black Swan'. This record takes you to a place where no other does, it's a sun-drenched frontier, a place of 'one mechanic towns', a world of love and loss where 'it's a big decision to either think of you or not'. The Black Swan mythologises Australia - a scorched planet, Camus' L'Etranger set to fairground music. And as for 'The Clown Prince', the album's masterpiece, it's 'The Threepenny Opera' condensed into a 4 minute pop song. Listen... And fall in love."

Outback Cabaret

Anat Pick | Tel Aviv | 10/14/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The subtle quirkiness of The Triffids is all too easily overshadowed by the self-professed otherness of bands like The Birthday Party. But don't be fooled: this Australian band offers one of the most haunting and outlandish listens around. The Black Swan (the title of a short story by Thomas Mann), produced by Smiths producer Stephen Street, takes you on a melancholy tour around Australia's darker underbelly. The atmosphere is dreamy yet unsettling, with superb lyrics to match the music. The cast of characters includes drunken hobos, sad clowns, or a magician turning butterflies into worms. There are also Jill Birt's acidic pseudo-pop songs. Somewhere between fairytale and nightmare, The Black Swan's outback cabaret is an overlooked masterpiece."

Wildly Eclectic and Enigmatic

Kurt Harding | Boerne TX | 07/04/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Before I begin my review, I would like prospective buyers of The Black Swan to know that the product information posted on amazon as of the date of this review is sorely out of date and refers to a previous edition. On the Domino Recordings reissue/remaster, there are two discs. The first disc has nineteen songs and features the studio versions from the original album plus a few cuts not on the original. The second disc features fourteen demo versions of songs from the first disc and three songs that never got beyond the demo stage.

Now that all that is straight, I will get to the review. The liner notes say that Triffids mastermind David McComb envisioned The Black Swan as their "White Album" and in many ways you can say it is. Beatles fans know how wildly eclectic and enigmatic that piece of work is and so it is the same here. On The Black Swan, The Triffids manage to cover a huge swathe of musical territory ranging from lush pop, hard-boiled goth, folk harmonies, all the way to a real tango! And they augment their sound with a variety of "exotic" instruments to give the music an often unforgettable edge. It's an album you have to hear to believe!

The album opens with some ominous spaghetti-western twang and advances from there. Though there are a couple songs I could do without, there are a lot of GREAT ones here as well and I have no idea why the Van Gogh-eared suits at the record company couldn't find them. My favorites on Disc one are: The driving, muscular One Mechanic Town; the eerie Jack's Hole; Blackeyed Susan, with its splendid harmonies; the hot tango of The Clown Prince; and the haunting romance of Fairytale Love. I also like the quirky pop of Falling Over You and Goodbye Little Boy; the record-company requested cover of Can't Help Falling In Love (think Nick Cave's album of covers, Kicking Against the Pricks); and You Minus Me, a song that evokes the great Danny O'Keefe.

Disc two is quite unnecessary, being a bunch of primitive demos, but even here there are some songs worth hearing. I like the spare, intimate demo take of Butterflies Into Worms as much as I like the excellent but more polished album version. While One Mechanic Town didn't come across so well as a demo, Blackeyed Susan, The Clown Prince, and Fairytale Love all exceeded my expectations.

The Black Swan gives the listener just over two hour's worth of music. It includes a thick booklet that contains lyrics, pictures, album information, and a couple of short pieces about the album and the band written by two of the musicians that played in it. As with other reissues of The Triffids albums, Domino Recording Co. has done a top-notch job with The Black Swan. Nothing rinky-dink here whatsoever. The Triffids are a band that deserve not to be forgotten. Listen to what they have created here and you will agree."