Customer Reviews

Blood Visions

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I don't know exactly what to say to sum this album up in a succinct fashion. When I first saw it, I thought it looked a little too much like the cover of the DWARVES cd, "Blood, Guts, and Pu**y", but it came highly recommended by a friend who's taste I trust. After just the opening chords of the title track, I was completely turned inside out. It just struck something inside me and I knew this was going to take over my cd player & iPod. Six months later and I'm STILL playing this in heavy rotation. I'm really surprised it didn't just hit REALLY big, because it seems to have the necessary elements of a megahit, not unlike NIRVANA's "Bleach" when it was first released in 1989.

Jay Reatard captures all that's great about the 70s/80s punk/new-wave sound ala DEVO, THE WIPERS, WIRE, GARY NUMAN, etc. It has a really great rhythm throughout and just the fact that he plays every instrument & produced every bit of this himself is impressive unto itself.

His other bands are excellent as well (there's only about 20 of them). If you like what you hear be sure to check out LOST SOUNDS which is his band with female punk demigodess, Alicja Trout.

Jay Reatard has come a loooong way since his young, loud and snotty Reatards days. The Hammer I Miss You single released just a few months prior to this completely blew me away. It had this post punky Velvets sound to it that drew me right in and began a routine of daily listening. It's that good of a single. Upon purchasing Blood Visions, my thoughts were "There's no way he could top Hammer...". I was dead wrong. This is a perfect album. There's real staying power here, and the songs seem to have an emotional depth to them that has lacked in garage rock for a long time. Actually there's never been tons of emotional depth in trash/garage rock, so maybe Jay's breaking new ground. This is the album other's will be judged by for a long time.

in my opinion Jay Reatard's "Blood Visions" is the single most cohesive, unfathomably tight, sinister, and disturbingly brilliant pop record ever made. Every track is simultaneously a polished diamond and a catastrophic train wreck. All of the rock n' roll thematic standards are represented: unrequited love, lament, loss, anger, murder, death, and redemption. When Jay Reatard sing/yells "Missing You" you really believe he misses someone, perhaps a bit too much. Although this record transcends the usual comparisons, it could be said that a eight headed hydra monster including the heads of
Roy Orbison, Screaming Lord Sutch, Graham Lewis (Wire), Jim Weber (New Bomb Turks), Mark Mothersbaugh, Gerry Roslie (The Sonics), Billy Childish (Thee Headcoats), and Glen Danzig. But the entire record was recorded by Jay Reatard alone! This isn't just some master musician wanking his glowing guitar, but a conceptual mastermind who uses his talents in a brutally cohesive fashion.
If you have a pulse, or even if you don't, you should own this pop masterpiece before the world explodes in a heap of blood and glass and feathers.

Buy this! What a horrible shame such a great artist died so young. His songs get stuck in my head...so many of them do, he didn't give you just one or two catchy songs like so many artists. I'm glad I discovered him when I did.

I try not to buy albums without hearing them first, but it does seem thats how I find my favorites. After reading a good bit about Mr. Reatard's Blood Visions, I gave it a shot. What da ya know? I love it.

I've read a lot of reviews calling this new wave/garage rock. I guess that fits well enough, but Jay is way ahead of the rest. Songs that suck you into their passionate delivery and beat, while at the same time not being overly emo, are hard to come by. Half Stooges/half radio pop with a lot of seasoning from all over the spectrum, Blood Visions hits the nail on the head.

What was the last new rock album that truly gave you `the shivers?' And I'm not talking delirium tremens here. Mr. Jay Reatard of Memphis has crafted just such a work in his `Blood Visions' LP (In The Red). The `boy-wonder' musician and producer already scorched a path through the garage and synth-punk jungle with groups like The Reatards, Lost Sounds, and (believe me) many more, all the while honing his unique attack. His new work is a relentlessly efficient barrage of blazingly original melodic punk-pop that bursts through the tedious garage rock ghetto to claim fresh- uh, blood. Jay has found the perfect vehicle for his righteously misanthropic lyrics, a compellingly ominous musical landscape of modern life run off the rails. Musical strands of predecessors like Devo, Wire and The Adverts are crammed onto a careening personal pop skeleton. Here is a man wary of `Greed, Money, Useless Children,' `My Family,' and even `My Shadow.' While this may not sound like much fun, it's the sounds that carry it through, nailing one by one with unique hooks that prick the ear and leave a bright stain. For a man with such a body of work behind him, like it or not he's got a future in store for the rest of us.

This is one of the greatest punk albums of all time. Seriously.

I recommend it to anyone and everyone.

If The Futureheads stopped being british and turned up the punk knob this might happen...maybe not. Either way this is very catchy late 70's/early 80's type punk perfected all the way down to the production. Simple, raw, and full of youth. I am reminded of the Buzzcocks, Richard Hell, and Wire...basically the greats. It's been a while since something of this caliber has been released and could still be considered "punk". The lyrics are brimming with drunken fun and lack of inhabitions as well (see the title of this review). It would be pretty punk to steal this album, but it would be even more punk to buy something from someone who has definitely created something great.

2 1/2


If short, manic indie pop is your thing, the constantly blaring Reatard may fit your bill, though I rarely see past a folksier Andrew WK in the songwriting department.