The Straitjacket Fits - Hail (1988) & Life in One Chord ep (1987)

The Bats and The Chills may have beaten them to the clock by several years, but for me, The Straitjacket Fits were the quintessence of what New Zealand's revered Flying Nun label had to offer. I'm not really sure that the Fits debut album, Hail did them adequate justice, given its somewhat dense mix, but nevertheless, it was too satisfying to resist. "Life In One Chord" (a song that appeared on Hail, not the EP that confusingly shares it's namesake) bears a monstrous hook, coupled with an engulfing sonic wallop that makes this song worth the price of admission alone. Unfortunately, these days you can't really name a price on any Straitjacket Fits song/album (except perhaps Ebay), as their entire catalog has ostensibly been deleted, save for a token best-of CD.

This upload contains the Hail LP, plus the preceding Life In One Chord EP. The US Rough Trade release of Hail forfeited four of the album's original ten tracks and included the entire four-song Life EP in it's place. Not necessarily the worst move quality wise, but completests like myself were forced to hunt for the New Zealand version on CD, which contains both the album and the EP in their entirety. The CD track sequence, intermingles the songs from each release haphazardly, but this should help:

Hail (1988)
02. Telling Tales
03. Dead Heat
04. Hail
05. Only You Know
08. Take From the Years
09. So Long Marianne
10. Grate
11. Fabulous Things
13. Life In One Chord
14. This Taste Delight

Life In One Chord (1987)
01. Dialling a Prayer
06. She Speeds
07. Sparkle That Shines
12. All That That Brings

Now available on Bandcamp