If you look up the Wikipedia page for 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (at least as of the time of writing) it includes a quote from a review from a Matt Price writing for The Australian where he complains about the lack of Australian artists.
And he kind of has a point, there haven’t been many so far. You'd be forgiven for thinking that only the UK and USA ever make any music. There’ve been more Brazilian artists featured so far than there have Australian, but to be fair, places like Brazil (and Jamaica, and South Africa) have created distinctive musical styles that have been picked up by and influenced Western artists while Australia has no distinctive musical style of its own, that I can tell. Except plonking a bit of didgeridoo or bullroarer in the background of a song to make it sound “Australian”. Arguably there's an Australian strand of folk/country that blends in bits of English, Irish, and American folk to create its own strand of fiddles 'n' guitars music.
There’s very little on here that has an especially Australian sound either, although given that The Triffids come from Perth, the album is rife with imagery of deserts and isolation (the title coming from an hallucination suffered from sailors who come to view the sea as verdant fields). Otherwise the sound is what you might expect from the poppier end of New Wave style music, not a million miles from the likes of The Teardrop Explodes.
Unmade Love is a nice thumpy one, others are a bit more melodic. Holy Water is almost a calypso, with vibrophone, xylophone and a bit of flute going on. Blinder By The Hour is where vocalist David McComb’s voice is given a good workout, I was reminded of Scott Walker in terms of range and tone, although not as deep. The most “Australian” track on here is, in my opinion, Jerdacuttup Man - a folky tune told from the point of view of a mummified corpse displayed in the British Museum, and is rather good. Jerdacuttup is a small town in Western Australia that, as far as I could tell, was once owned by mining corporations, and the track could be read as a commentary on the exploitation of Western Australia.
This one grew on me – not the most exciting album on the list, but I could pick a couple of keepers from it.
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