Obscure (but should not have been) album of the week...

DAVID McCOMB - Love of Will [1994]

It goes without saying that Perth native David McComb was one of Australia’s greatest songwriters. Following the disbandment of The Triffids in the late 80s, he released his one and only solo album, Love of Will, in 1994. It is a shamefully overlooked work, equally on par with any album of The Triffids.
It is also long out of print.

The final two albums from The Triffids, Calenture [1987] and The Black Swan [1989] contained some of the band's best work but were marred by over-production and superfluous synth wash, as was the style of the time. Following these works, it's refreshing to hear the dry treatment and uncomplicated arrangements of Love of Will. The contributions from various Triffids and Blackeyed Susans members (the latter of which McComb was also a member of) are warm and sympathetic and, whilst there’s nothing here quite in the pantheon of Triffids masterpieces 'Wide Open Road' or 'Bury Me Deep In Love', the quality remains high throughout.

The scorching 'Setting You Free' (one of two singles from the album along with 'Clear Out My Mind') is probably the closest link to the Triffids sound of yore. Elsewhere, it's an intimate and sombre affair. The two most spiritual songs, 'The Day of My Ascension' and 'Leaning' are prophetic in tone, somewhat eerie in light of McComb's tragically early passing (aged 37) in 1999. Listening to these tracks, one could be forgiven for thinking that McComb had some awareness of his fate.

Broken relationships and the tyranny of distance are subjects that McComb excelled at. He seemed to have an ability, much like his key influences, Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed, to sound tender and sardonic at the same:

I could ask you why you married him
I could ask you one of a dozen things
But I don’t like to watch an old friend suffering.
(‘Nothing Good Is Going To Come With This’)

He could be downright venemous too, when he wanted to be. ‘I Heard You Had A Bed’ is a kiss-off that would be thoroughly unpleasant were it not for the fact that the character sounds like such a lost cause, while other tracks revel in a paranoid fog, evidenced by this chilling verse:

What scares me to death, baby
Is that you can see right through me
And if you can do that baby
What good are you to me?
('Deep In A Dream')

The efforts of surviving Triffids members, along with devoted fans, high profile musicians and industry-types have done much to sustain the legacy of David McComb's work. Tribute gigs, reunion shows, cover songs and art exhibitions have abounded. Every Triffids album has been repackaged and remastered, with bonus tracks and exemplary liner notes.

And yet sadly, this is the one album in a formidable canon of work that has not been reprinted. I was fortunate enough to stumble across a copy in a secondhand record store in Switzerland a few years ago for an almost criminally low price. Since then, I have found the odd used copy circulating online in excess of $150.
As I say, there are devoted fans…

-AMCS