Although they were relatively big indie news in the mid-to-late 1980s, Western Australia’s glorious sextet THE TRIFFIDS seem to have been largely forgotten in the critical scheme of things until the ever-diligent Domino stepped in of late.
Domino will be releasing the band’s entire catalogue over the next couple of years and you can believe me with confidence when I tell you this will form a series of purchases you’ll be SOO pleased with if you’ve never previously experienced the elegant darkness at the core of their late singer/ songwriter David McComb’s craft. Make no mistake: although he’s considerably less-celebrated than his contemporaries such as Nick Cave, Robert Forster and the sadly late Grant McLennan, McComb – who died after a car accident in 1999 at the ridiculously premature age of 38 – deserves to be bracketed in the highest pantheon of singer/ songwriters ever to have emerged from Australia.
From their expansive classic “Born Sandy Devotional” (album about to be re-issued by Domino), “Wide Open Road” was also a single back in 1985, and its’ turbulent, trembling emotions haven’t aged a day since. Based around Martyn Casey’s lugubrious Motown funeral bassline and taken away by a little Rob McComb guitar coda that is basically the sound of your heart melting, “Wide Open Road” still whacks you in the gut and brings you up short whenever McComb’s commanding baritone gets to that line “so how do you think it feels sleeping by yourself/ when the one you love is with someone else?” Oh My God and then some.
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You need its’ parent album of course, but the uninitiated should start here. “Wide Open Road” is the sound of rage, regret, longing and deep, deep heartache rolled into the most affecting four minutes. How you couldn’t succumb to this is beyond me.
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