Born Sandy Devotional

Artist: The Triffids
Label: Mushroom
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Enhanced
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1
EAN: 9397603241727
ASIN: B0000088JP

Release Date: 1998-04-07

Born Sandy Devotional

Related Categories:

General

| Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

Rock

| Imports | Stores | Music

Tracks:

Seabirds
Estuary Bed
Chicken Killer
Tarrilup Bridge
Lonely Stretch
Wide Open Road
Life of Crime
Personal Things
Stolen Property
Tender Is the Night (The Long Fidelity)

Album Description

The Australian folk-pop band's landmark 1986 album. Ten tracks. Mushroom.

Customer Reviews:

BROADSIDE..........2006-06-11

When the Triffids put out the Richter-cracking "Born Sandy Devotional" there was no further comment, for them or anyone else. It was soon to be the golden year 1986; satellite TV and cell phones were coming to the fore, and the world was glued to the television, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Whitney Houston.

Lots to be distracted about...

No one cared, and even now, most are still asleep. But the real earthquake may soon finally come; I hear "Born Sandy Devotional" is now being reissued.

Greil Marcus remarked a similar thought about the much-flashier Sex Pistols when he said something to the effect that "Never Mind the Bollocks" cracked rock and roll in half.

The Triffids were the "anti-Sex Pistols" in every single way imaginable. They didn't crack rock and roll in half (among many other things they didn't do). Most of the time, no one even noticed the considerable oxygen they'd used up in whichever club they'd just played in.

For better or worse, "Born Sandy Devotional" marked the informal end of what had once been known as New Wave music. The Triffids popularized the scary end of normal human emotions as...normal. Homemade music had suddenly stopped being apologetic for being homemade.

The leadoff song "The Seabirds" is the most un-rock "Track One" song I know of, on any song album ever recorded. Actually it's the most unlikely leadoff track, period. Any other band couldn't pull it off. But with the Triffids, it was all in a day's work. What with weird pedal steel, a forlorn melody, and the death-infused vocals, this song is an introduction to a crazy quilt of an album of misshapen things that simply couldn't ever be rock.

Not rock, perhaps, but instead, something that was unapologetically emotional and tearful, in a way that was unknown outside of American country music. But the Triffids weren't country, and they could never become country. They were too worldly for that, and were too intelligent as a band to ever be anything other than hopeless misfits.

Their confident songs were evidence that, in some muted way, the Triffids were aware of that fact. One can tell by the way they played the songs on this album. No one could ever mistake the soul-rending epic "Wide Open Road" for anything other than the Triffids, in spite of thousands of imitators who are largely afraid to mention the Triffids by name.

Nothing could ever take the place of this album. There is no equivalent to "Born Sandy Devotional" anywhere. Punk rock cannot address the issues that "Born Sandy Devotional" raises, and neither can anything else.

Every song on "Born Sandy Devotional" has a friendly face combined with a scary underside. Crime, lost love, death by misadventure, and personal decline are all handled like silly merry-go-round tunes for children.

Whee!

By the time the listener reaches the bizarre-but-brilliant "Tender Is The Night" at the end of all this, they will wonder if it was a great music album, or a nightmare. But its cathartic effect simply cannot be denied. David McComb's vocals are simply too insistent, and the band is too erudite, for it to pass as anything other than a one-in-a-million collection of songs.

Listening to BSD is hard work and occasionally even unpleasant, but it is very much worth it, in the end. You haven't lived, until you live through an unbroken listen to this musical landmark.

This album is simply not to be missed.

Songs of Longing.......2004-04-16

Australian artists must generally leave for Britain or America to really succeed in the music business. Though this album was recorded in London, The Triffids seem to yearn intensely and defiantly for their distant homeland.

Their third record, Born Sandy Devotional, is a moving and beautiful release that combines at times languid, at times anthemic guitar rock with shades of mournful sea chanties and country ballads. The songs tell stories that remind me of Jack London's: desperation pushes the exhausted, frustrated, and betrayed to tenaciously endure and at times even indulge feelings of hope. Except for Life of Crime, the only track on the album that lacks passion and originality, and Chicken Killer, which is a tad too frivolous, every song feels like an open wound just before the healing sets in.

Though Jill Birt's voice is thin and of limited range, it is, thank goodness, used sparingly. The bulk of the singing is handled by songwriter David McComb, whose style blends the best qualities of Jim Morrison and Nick Cave.

If you've ever lost a part of yourself through losing a person or place that you love, this record will speak to you.

A Devotional Album.......2001-06-05

This is an extraordinary album. The sound has a wonderful lushness and sense of space, although most of the songs deal with loss, regret and isolation. The late David McComb's lyrics are extremely evocative and unusual - "No foreign pair of dark sunglasses could ever shield you from/The light that pierces your eyelids, the screaming of the gulls" are the lines which open the album. It's a very emotional album, made all the more so by the haunted note in David McComb's voice.

It's difficult to pick highlights when the album hangs together so well, but "The Seabirds", "Estuary Bed", "Wide Open Road", "Stolen Property" and "Tender Is The Night" all bring a tear to the eye. Somehow, the overall effect of all these rather gloomy songs is really quite uplifting, possibly due to the fine, rather swoonsome arrangements and soaring melodies. I bought this album when it came out in 1986, and it's one that has stayed with me. This will appeal to fans of skewed pop like The Go-Betweens, The Smiths, REM or even Nick Cave in his slightly less lurid moments.

Music Album:

Music Album

Music Album

Music

Outbreak ~ Dennis Chambers

Tie That Binds ~ Joe Derrane

Highway to Hell ~ AC/DC, DC

Evil Sperm ~ Killtrain

Serious Business ~ Brian Greenway

Live at Montreux, 1987, 1989, 2000 ~ Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Folklore Aus Portugal ~ Various Artists

Os Melhores Do Samba, Vol. 2 ~ Various Artists

Occhio! ~ Radici Nel Cemento

Club Prive ~ Massimo Volume