CD: REWIGCD23
RELEASED: 2008
LABEL: Domino

01. Jesus calling
02. Embedded
03. St James Infirmary
04. Everybody Has To Eat
05. Ballad Of Jack Frost
06. Property Is Condemned
07. Raining Pleasure
08. Figurine
09. When My Heart Breaks
10. Mother Silhouette
11. Mercy
12. Crucifixion Speech
13. Not The Marrying Kind
14. Bright Lights Big City
15. Monkey On My Back
16. Field Of Glass
17. Native Bride
18. Dear Miss Lonely Hearts
19. Beautiful Waste

The Triffids emerged from Perth, Australia in the 80s- starting with a series of self-released cassettes and then building their career from there. They were part perpetual also-rans, part sprawling genre-not-botherers-with (either in terms of sticking to or disregarding), and all very good indeed. Frontman David McCombs died in 1999 at the end of a decade in which he had suffered near-constant health problems including a heart transplant. Beautiful Waste is a lovely introduction to this great band, it is worth buying if only for the wonderful lost masterpiece mini-album "Raining Pleasure" - which fills in the missing link between "Treeless Plain" and "Born Sandy Devotional". It's also worth buying if only for the wonderful lost masterpiece "Field Of Glass" EP - originally recorded as a John Peel session, but showing the Triffids at their most ferociously intense. Two of these tracks had previously been available on the "Love In Bright Landscapes" release, but not the title track. The remainder consists of tracks taken from an alternate project not attributed to the Triffids, called "Lawson Square Infirmary" - not to be confused with "St James Infirmary" (a song off "Raining Pleasure"). These recordings have been lovingly restored, wonderfully repackaged with lavish sleevenotes and original artwork and it's a joy to hear them again after all this time. It just makes you sorrowful for the loss of a great talent, but equally thankful that so much of his work was committed to tape at the time.

Influences / Similar Artists:
Nick Cave, Go-Betweens, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Smiths