Search - Triffids :: Born Sandy Devotional

Amazing Songs, Awesome Album -Buy this and you'll love it!

Perrymonkey | New York, NY United States | 08/23/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In 1986 people's view of Australian music changed forever. The Triffids led this change by showing the rest of the world that Aussie songwriting and musicianship was something to be reckoned with.



Born Sandy Devotional (BSD) is an essential piece of any music fan's collection. Whether you like rock, country, folk, pop, rap or classical, you will appreciate the songs written by David McComb and performed by The Triffids. The band's fans, know as "TriffHeads", are rabidly devoted to spreading the word about the Triffids and trying to help them reach new fans, especially in America, a country they were not able to break. BSD is considered by most TriffHeads to be their defining album.



It is hard to classify The Triffids. I would say somewhere between Johnny Cash and the Rolling Stones - yet, on their own plain as well. For instance the first song doesn't have a jingley-jangley guitar intro or a swelling build up to the first line. Boom, instant. The Seabirds hits like a big fat thick drop of honey upon your eardrum. As the album rolls on, the honey spreads and sinks in to your brain and then down your spine through your bones and blood. And there it stays. In fact, honey is a good metaphor for this music. Honey is sweet, nutritious, universally loved and can even heal wounds when applied to the skin. We know it is produced by bees but not sure how it is made or how the bees all work together in order to get their sweet product.



The musicianship is phenomenal. This is a band that listens to each other when they play. The many layers stretch and pull and touch and mingle in a way that keeps the music fresh through endless listenings. The band is known not just for their musical abilities but the way they interpret and produce David's songs. These songs are wired into the band member's brains and played from the heart. David McComb sings, plays guitar and keyboards, 'Evil' Graham Lee plays pedal, lap steel and shoulder guitars, Martyn Casey is on bass, Jill Birt sings and plays keyboards, David's brother Robert McComb plays violin and guitar and Alsy MacDonald plays drums.



Another reason to own BSD is that David McComb is arguable one of the greatest songwriters of all time. And I am including Mozart on this list. David was born to write and write he did prolifically for his short 36 years here on Earth. Like any highly regarded artist, his songs come from inside out. His lyrics are quotable and sticky. If you listen enough to The Triffids, you will have an insightful and philosophical comment for every occasion - just don't say it in front of another TriffHead because they will know you are just repeating one of David's lyrics:



"I know your shape

Our limbs entwined

I know your name, remember mine"

from Estuary Bed



I give this album the highest rating and it is my favorite of all time.



(The 2006 re-mastered version includes 9 bonus tracks and a booklet of David's hand written lyrics)"

Saved From Oblivion

Kurt Harding | Boerne TX | 06/24/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Whenever I meet an Australian, I usually try to strike up a conversation about Australian music. Most I've met know Nick Cave but not a single Aussie I have met stateside has ever confessed to knowing about The Triffids. Here in the states, I would wager that fewer still have heard of them. I'd likely never have heard of them myself if bassist Martyn Casey had not later joined Cave's Bad Seeds, a band of which I am a huge fan.

With the reissue of Born Sandy Devotional, Domino Recording Company commences a labor of love which hopefully will save this very good band from an undeserved oblivion. While most of the songs here lack the quality of some of The Triffids later releases, the raw and sometimes primitive sound carries on its notes a promise of future greatness.

When I first put this on, I was a little disappointed. The first four songs are decidedly unexceptional. But then it got better. My favorites are Personal Things and the pounding, vibrant title cut which oddly was not included on the original. I also like the songs containing sonic elements reminiscent the very early music of Nick Cave. These include Lonely Stretch, Life of Crime, When A Man Turns Bad, and Time of Weakness.

The CD comes with a small booklet that slides into the jewel box and which contains original lyrics and some notes on the bonus cuts. A larger booklet containing pictures, doodlings, and notes fits into the cardboard housing provided as an overcoat keeping the CD and the larger booklet together.

While Born Sandy Devotional is certainly not the best CD ever, as one reviewer gushes, it is useful to all those wishing an introduction to the often brilliant song-writing of the late David McComb. I applaud Domino Recording on the quality of this reissue (and other Triffids reissues I own) and hope that their devotion to keeping The Triffids music before the public is amply rewarded."