Jay Reatard: Watch Me Fall
Jay Reatard: Watch Me Fall
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Saturday, 15, Aug 2009 01:02
Matador Records, out August 17th.
In a nutshell...
Frank, hook-tastic, giddy pop punk
What's it all about?
The title is typically unequivocal of recent Reatard work in terms of theme. This is candidness embodied but its unity of theme is belied by the subject matter itself: paranoia with a dab of hopelessness.
A total of 12 songs make the final cut, with introspective yelps, crunching guitars and rock n roll synths blaring out numbers such as It Ain't Gonna Save Me, Can't do it anymore and There Is No Sun. Beautifully, rampantly depressing.
Who's it by?
Jay Reatard, or if you want his real name Jay Lindsey, started his musical career young, making his first demo tape at the age of 15 under the name of the Reatards. He then formed the Lost Sounds with then girlfriend Alicja Trout before his first release under solo moniker Jay Reatard hitting in 2006.
He is well-known for his prolific songwriting skills and insane live shows with his band, which have been known to see 18 songs or more busted out in less than 25 minutes.
This year also saw Jay revive his Shattered Records label.
As an example...
"There is no sun for me."
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
You'd hate to say it, but Reatard is a little too, well, cool to get an award like this. You would hope if he did he would smash the prize over his head in a wonderful moment of stunning self-destruction. Fingers crossed.
What the others say
"Reatard... typically makes a Buzzcockian power-pop racket with fuzzy synth chords behind his blur-wristed guitar thrashing, and there's a case to be made that when you've heard one you've heard 'em all." Simon Price, Independent
"While the record peaks early, the rest of Watch Me Fall has a welcome diversity in melody and arrangements, and several late-album growers worth returning to." - Jason Crock, Pitchfork
So is it any good?
Watch Me Fall is an apt title. At once it seems unequivocal, rousing and declamatory, yet the plaintive connotations of the imperative tone in the three titular words are impossible to avoid.
The music itself is both straightforward and muddled in an almost beautiful contradiction. On the one hand, there is the relentlessly pounding pop-punk, full of infectious hooks and vocal refrains, to the extent that the listener feels like they have been set free in a glorious pick and mix store. But when you reach the later tracks, with plenty of reverb and periods of murmuring noise, it feels like you were just enjoying the cola bottles when they shut Woolworths and you are left in the dark, cold and alone. Fortunately enough album closer There Is No Sun, despite the morbid overtones, brings odd warmth, a togetherness in the darkness.
It is in this contradictoriness that Watch Me Fall is a success, only let down by moments where songs are not as cohesive as others that were so thrilling in their insistency, their pitting of joyous melody against self-destructive lyrics. Hang Them All, in particular, loses its way around two minutes in as Reatard tries a change of pace and feel, never recovering from a comparatively dull second half.
Nevertheless, Watch Me Fall does exactly what it says on the tin. And if it were a tin it would be hard to complain when what is inside this fiery vessel is such a fine product.
8/10
Thomas S Brewster