Back in the 80’s, bands from Dunedin, NZ, rewrote the rulebook for post-punk guitar bands. Perhaps it’s the vastness of the Pacific and the Southern Ocean. Perhaps it’s the dizzying scope of the landscape, but you can hear in their records a freshness: the resonance, the space, the chiming cleanliness of the sound. Maybe it’s just the distance from the UK and the States which separates.
Following hard on the heels of the Clean and the Chills came Straitjacket Fits, starting life around 85–86. The (Midas-like) Flying Nun label put out their debut EP in 1987: the perfectly formed ‘Life In One Chord’. Four tracks of spiralling, swirling guitars swaggered off the vinyl. You could namecheck The Byrds for the soaring melodies, and then distil the sound through a mountainous hydro-electric power-station, with Shayne Carter and Andrew Brough sharing the nasal vocals.
The sixties references definitely apply, and maybe there is a touch of psychedelia here, but the driving bass propels Straightjacket Fits into the heavyweight category. ‘Dialling a Prayer’ is a desperate and floundering cry; ‘Sparkle that Shines’ – the beauty of the song belying its sentiment (“What will we feel when everyone feels no pain?”); ‘All that that brings’ positively beaming with nonchalant class. But the highlight of the EP is ‘She Speeds’, a rock-song of masterful quality. From the soft drone and solo twang of the intro, the tension holds and builds. The vocal comes in, pained, far away… “And I quietly count with her gone / Name any number and I’m counting beyond…” the melody is intoxicating, the guitars grow and clash, the song rising and burning until the hook, oh yes! a climax so sublime you can almost see the fireworks. The songs sparkle and jangle, but Straitjacket Fits are a band with power in reserve. They can be soft and melodic to accentuate the strength of their tunes, but they can unleash a real force when they want to. I was lucky enough to see the band in 1989 – the whirlwind they created was mindblowing. Their fury of feedback left a legacy from the south which is picked up today by the likes of High Dependency Unit. All four tracks on ‘Life in One Chord’ were included on the UK/US issue of ‘Hail’, but the LP wasn’t just more of the same. A cover of ‘So Long Marianne’ (Leonard Cohen) may have seemed an oblique choice, but as the Straitjacket Fits rhythm kicks it off, you can see it will work. The voice is plaintive and mournful (as it must be), and the Fits make it their own. Also on the LP is a song named ‘Life In One Chord’, which does its best to live up to its name. The loudest song on the record, it picks up a Suicide / Spacemen3 – style riff and cranks up the volume and the pace into a thrilling white-out. This is a band to whom dynamics seem to come naturally, sailing a jagged course between breaking force and aching beauty. Some of the lyrics are wistfully sad, but the last words on the record are apt: “Purely ours – this taste delight”.