(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
The Triffids, led by David McComb (vocals, guitar) and Jill Birt (organ), emerged in the 1980s as one of the most pedantic groups of the new Australian wave. David McComb sang in a solemn tone, like a gospel preacher, and the band kept a martial tempo. The songs were mostly funereal.
Those on Treeless Plain (Hot, 1983) were somewhat old-fashioned sermons, often accompanied by a funereal organ and solemn bass lines, which in their best moments became twilight-like everyday poems (the dragged-out blues of My Baby Thinks She's A Train), but more often echoed the melodic side of British dark-punk such as Joy Division and the Cure (Hell Of A Summer). Red Pony has the intensity of an Animals blues sung in Jim Morrisons register and played with Indian-tinged inflections. The arrangements are always carefully melodramatic (Rosevel for organ, violin, and finger snaps).
The mini-album Raining Pleasure (Hot, 1984) advanced on several fronts but felt somewhat confused, between the classical madrigal of Raining Pleasure, the almost rap-like oration of Property Is Condemned, and especially the free-flowing folk ballad Jesus Calling, somewhere between U2 and the Waterboys.
McCombs emphatic style culminated in the apocalyptic atmosphere of Bright Lights Bright City and the desperate snarl of Monkey On My Back, both from the EP Field Of Glass (Hot, 1985).
The single You Don't Miss Your Water extended the same blend of melodrama and blues, Nick Cave and Rolling Stones.
Love in Bright Landscape (Hot, 1986) is a compilation of the 198385 period.
An excess of strings and keyboards obscured the already anguished lyrics of Born Sandy Devotional (Hot, 1986 Domino, 2006), such as Wide Open Road, Personal Things, Stolen Property, and Lonely Stretch; while the contemporary In The Pines (Hot, 1986 Domino, 2007), featuring the title lullaby, was recorded literally in the woods with minimal production.
Calenture (Island, 1987 Domino, 2007) opened a more commercial phase, characterized by heavily arranged songs like Kelly's Blues.
Black Swan (Island, 1989) experimented with other genres as well, including the rap of Falling Over You, flamenco in Clown Prince, funk-rock in The Spinning Top Song, and disco in Goodbye Little Boy.
After the EP Falling Over You (Island, 1989), the Triffids disbanded.
McComb released a mediocre solo album, Love Of Will (Mushroom, 1994), but years later he reappeared, albeit as an external contributor, in a new project formed from the ashes of the Triffids: the Blackeyed Susans, formed by singer Rob Snarski with bassist Phil Kakulas (a former member of the early Triffids lineup) and Graham Lee on guitar. The first three EPs (Some Births Are Worse Than Murders, Anchor Me, Depends On What You Mean By Love) were compiled on Welcome Stranger (1992). Many covers and a few originals: Don't Call Yourself An Angel, Enemy Mine, Glory Glory, Anchor Me, Who's That By The Window?, Trouble, and, on the third EP, McCombs Ocean of You and In The Pines.
All Souls Alive (Frontier, 1994) met expectations. The group now included two-thirds of the Dirty Three, namely multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis (violin, mandolin, accordion, piano) and drummer Jim White, plus Andy Parsons on keyboardsthree top-level musicians. The album not only revisits the Triffids stagnant rock idea, but pushes it toward even more depressing territories. A Curse On You opens the new phase with Nick Cave-like apocalyptic emphasis and Leonard Cohen-like melodies, over the usual atmospheric organ. It is melodrama, but at least of high qualityponderous like the worst Moody Blues in Dirty Water, and martial in a Slavic-Greek folk vein in Sheets Of Rain. Every Gentle Soul combines an hypnotic salsa rhythm with dreamlike slide guitar. We Could've Been Someone quietly sings the nostalgia for something irretrievably lost. This One Eats Souls conveys the same indolence and loneliness as the ticking clock that accompanies it.
The music of the Blackeyed Susans brushes chamber music in its intricate interplay of double bass, violin, accordion, slide guitar, and harpsichord. Always subdued, always cautious, always psychological, it belongs more to folk than rock.
Hard Liquor Soft Music (1994) is instead a covers album. Mouth To Mouth (HiGloss, 1995 American, 1996) contains She Breathes In, Let's Live, Hey Buddy, By Your Hand, I Can't Find Your Pulse, By Your Hand, Mary Mac, Shadow Of Her Smile, The End Of The Line.
David McComb died at the age of 36 in 1999.
The Blackeyed Susans also released
Some Night Somewhere (Hi-Gloss, 1996),
Spin The Bottle (Hi-Gloss Records, 1997),
Dedicated To The Ones We Love (Not On Label, 2001) and
Shangri-La (2003).
After a long hiatus, they returned with Close Your Eyes and See (2017).
