Jay Reatard "Watch Me Fall"
Jay Reatard's new release "Watch Me Fall" (out August 18, Matador Records) is a scrappy garage punk record that could be easily confused with any other scrappy garage punk record released in the last 10 years. It's not bad, just not anything that is different. The songwriting is repetitive, but enjoyable with an acoustic guitar here and there helping with the song dynamics. With that said, as a fan of scrappy garage punk, I enjoyed the blitzkrieg style songs, never letting up and driving his quirkiness home in every track. Highlights for me were opener "It Ain't Going to Save Me", "Can't Do It Anymore" and "Rotten Mind".
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2009.