First up you had Domino’s timely reissue of ‘Born Sandy Devotional’, now you have two former glories released together on the same day: ‘In The Pines’ and ‘’Calenture’. More than this though, you have the opportunity to pour over the release’s expansive 42 page booklet and extra tracks, conceived in the same manner as the label’s recent ‘perfect bound’ Pavement release and similarly detailing the ideas and inspirations behind the creation and recording of this classic 80s indie album including hand-written notes chronicling the genesis and progression of the albums songs, as well as an extra disc of material that includes studio demo versions of tracks like ‘Burned’ and ‘There Must Be A Curse On Me’. And all this in addition to a lucky bag of rehearsal demos and warm-up takes.
Of course McCombs fascination with 80s dance and electronic music is much in evidence, as is his fondness for saturating the whole glorious spectacle in swathes of reverb, but what you also get is a glimpse at a heaving romantic heart literally pumping with the blood of an orchestra and big fat beautiful widescreen visions. The guitars chime and roar, the drums pelt like rain and the aching, melancholy melodies are the very wind that plies its sails.
The phrase ‘calenture’ is defined on the albums cover as a ‘tropical delirium that afflicts sailors who imagine the sea to be green fields and have a desire to leap into them’. Appropriate in terms of its beauty and its ability to transform the ordinary. Take that leap.