[3][4] According to rock music historian, Ian McFarlane, "it was another superb release highlighted by the shimmering title track 'Raining Pleasure' (sung by Birt), the atmospheric country-blues of 'Jesus Calling' and a mournful rendering of the traditional blues tune 'St James Infirmary'".
Later Birt is joined by David McComb who suggests they go out but his thoughts inexorably turn to the ex-lover on the other side of the world with the exquisite lines 'It's getting dark earlier now/But where you are it's just getting light' ...
[3] They returned to Australia to tour and in April 1986 they recorded their next studio album, In the Pines, on the McCombs' family property in Ravensthorpe, about 540 km south east of Perth.
Penny Black Music's John Clarkson declared "[t]he breezy 'Trick of the Light', another failed single and an attempt at a pop number, pushes Jill Birt’s cascading, gorgeous keyboards to the fore, but again has a bleak undercurrent".
[10] It reminded Rolling Stone's David Fricke of "Lou Reed's acoustic lullabies with The Velvet Underground (no small thanks to the whispery Mo Tucker-style harmonies by pianist Jill Birt), is ostensibly a song of forgiveness.
But the gruesome imagery in the second verse – 'Well, they've dug up the patch/And found the remains ... hidden beneath that old stone/Where we carved our names on the underside' – makes you wonder if McComb is singing about emotional resilience or romantic delusion".
[15] In April 1989 NME's Gavin Martin described "Goodbye Little Boy" as "a modern girlie pop classic – breathy charm with a sting in the tale, a sure fire hit whenever the necessary radio edit has been made of the line 'I'm so fucking tired'" and found her own composition, "Good Fortune Rose" to be "a delicately blossoming thing etching a young girl's aspirations on the cusp of womanhood – a heady mix of innocence and sophistication".
[19] Surviving members of The Triffids – Birt, Casey, Lee, MacDonald and Robert McComb – were joined by guest singers and musicians, Mick Harvey (The Bad Seeds), Toby Martin (Youth Group), Mark and Rob Snarski (The Blackeyed Susans), Steve Kilbey (The Church) and Melanie Oxley.
[19][20] Graham Hill of ABC's national radio's Dig Music, found the "delivery of 'Goodbye Little Boy' was as close to 'original line-up' as you could hope for, but throughout the evening it was hard to shake the obvious absence – this was not a reunion, it was a celebration of a songwriter".
[21] Hill noted "[t]he final song was left to Jill Birt, who offered a word-perfect rendition of 'Tender Is the Night' despite losing her lyrics amidst the mountain of crib sheets of earlier singers".
[22][23][24] In April 2010, The Triffids reunited for performances in London with various guest vocalists in place of David McComb, Dev Hynes, Harvey, Snarski, Simon Breed and Tindersticks' Stuart Staples.
[18][26] Joining Birt on the EP were Casey and MacDonald with Adrian Hoffman (The Morning Light), guesting on individual tracks were Rob McComb and Lee.
In November and December that year another The Triffids reunion series, including an appearance at the Queenscliff Music Festival, had guest vocals from Harvey and Breed.
Similar to her EP, MacDonald, Casey and Hoffman all both perform on the album with appearances by Graham Lee, Robert McComb and Ricky Maymi (Brian Jonestown Massacre).