This record doesn’t have a bad song. it’s an incredible feature for this to be Jay Reatrd (as Jay Reatard) first record and display the coherence in tone and melody, the songs are full of melody and urgency, yet brutally melodic and noisy. one could i ply that is just the fruit to bear after a somewhat already prolific output with The Reatards and Lost Sounds, but that would be a disservice to the man.
This is a record of somewhat teenage angst that has matured yet remind troubled, they are the falling out of love song and the depressive take on life’s paradigms, but there is something so special about the bitter sweet tone of his voice that really resonates with the exhausting feeling of being constantly anxious and tired of being anxious.
The songs just keep running one after the other, each one vibrates slightly different but remain solidly in tune with each other, almost anthemic in nature if they weren’t so melancholic, they are not looking for something here, this is full disclosure, this is His vision of “noisy pop rock” the fulfilled him the best until he left.
Certainly one of my favorites in the genre and I believe that became really influential for the later part of the last decade.
Fat Possum Records FP1203-1, reissue, 2009 US.
-Demonwitch
ritualyouth.com 