Page Image: 

Now that’s an album cover. Last year marked the release of Jay Reatard’s latest Watch Me Fall yet also the Fat Possum re-issue of his first solo Blood Visions (on which he is seen in his underwear and covered in blood). Tragically, however, it was also his final year. The young Memphis artist also put out a few singles compilations in between his two semi major label records but then was found dead in his apartment last month. Manic punk energy mixed with new wave and pop sensibilities fill out his lo-fi production, so every track is fast short and sweet. Well, about as sweet as you can be singing songs about blood, death and killing. Backed up by simple guitar bass and drums which he pretty much played himself, tracks like “Greed, Money, Useless Children”, “Death is Forming” and “Turning Blue” pretty much say it all in less than threeminutes each just like everything on this album. Reatard’s angst is the kind played loud in your bedroom with a flying V wearing a skinny tie and Chucks. I could recommend anything from his solo catalogue, so you might as well pick up the one that started it all. Gone before he even began, he will be missed.