Solo debuts aren't supposed to be this good. Jay Reatard has been kicking around Memphis since a teen, starting in the 1990s with the dirty-word punk of The Reatards, and lately in the thrashy synth-centered Lost Sounds. The brilliant Blood Visions falls somewhere in between - rambunctious and roaring, jerking nervously all the way. Tons of highlights here - tons of them - hitting on just about every style that's had the word "punk" thrown at it as an epithet. It adds up sounding closest to the not-quite-new-wave rock that bounced between ambitious indies and majors around 1980; it resembles the twisted naiveté of the era, before bands realized that building a hook around "I will kill you" was going to keep them off the airwaves.
01 Blood visions - 1:31 02 Greed money useless children - :54 03 It's so easy - 1:09 04 My shadow - 3:18 05 My family - 1:43 06 Death is forming - 2:05 07 Oh it's such a shame - 2:28 08 Not a substitute - 1:05 09 Nightmares - 2:12 10 I see you standing thetre - 1:38 11 We who wait - 2:00 12 Fading all away - 1:28
13 Turning blue - 2:40 14 Puppet man - 1:43 15 Waiting for something - 3:15