The term is described in the sleeve notes as:

'Tropical fever or delirium suffered by sailors after long periods away from land, who imagine the seas to be green fields and desire to leap into them.'

The recording sessions for Calenture began with American producer (appointed by Island Records) however it bcame clear, at least to the band that Leon (and Island Records) were primarily interested in David McComb and not the rest of the band members.

'In the tried and true way of all major labels at the time, they really wanted to sign Dave but got a troublesome band instead. It was probably Island's insistence that Alsy and Marty weren't up to it that caused the Craig Leon sessions to be the unmitigated disaster that they were. Now I could be wrong here, maybe Craig wanted them out, maybe both. We were pretty much forced to let a couple of session guys stand in -- no names because it wasn't their fault -- and we could tell straight away that this was applying a straightener to the normally unruly quiff that was the band. It was also sucking the essence of the band out. Anyway, it's a sorry little interlude that I should draw the curtain on. The sessions were scrapped and we were allowed to be the Triffids again.'

Island Records then brought in however Kaye felt that the Triffids and their material were impressive enough and that they didn't need his help. Eventually (who worked on was brought back to re-record the album.

David McComb, in an interview with Paul Mathur (Rock Australia Magazine (RAM)) in February, 1988, described Calenture as an "over-the-top record" and even called it the Triffids' "" .

In 2007 Domino Records released a remastered edition including 12 bonus tracks, mostly rehearsal demos of the original album's tracks.

All songs written by David McComb, unless otherwise noted.