The Triffids: Hell of a Summer
David Cavanagh, 'Love is the Drug' (Penguin), 1994
HAILING FROM Perth, Western Australia, the five (later six)-piece Triffids lived in London for much of 1984-5 and were part of a brief musical wave of Australian pure but angry pop. Close musical cousins of the Go-Betweens, the Triffids released six sterling albums (Treeless Plain, Raining Pleasure, Born Sandy Devotional, In the Pines, Calenture and The Black Sivan) between 1983 and 1989, after which they disbanded. A live album, Stockholm, was released posthumously. Singer David McComb's intense brooding songs encompassed country, R&B, folk, rock and an occasionally wacky sense of humour, to little avail despite continued critical respect.
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