Aug. 19, 2009 - Issue #722: Edmonton Blues Festival 2009

Jay Reatard

Jay Reatard
Jay Reatard {recordings_bands_mg} Jay Reatard {/recordings_bands_mg}
, Jay Reatard

Over the course of the last three years, Jay Reatard has cut his teeth on single after single, compressing his songwriting into something hard and gem-like; he crafts almost perfect garage pop songs, tight little punk-infused nuggets that turn simple ideas into spitting, stomping garage rock. As time's gone by he's moved a bit further away from his distorted, snarling past, leaning more on melody while maintaining his penchant for hook-y bursts, something still stripped down but more grand and evocative.

Aurally, then, Watch Me Fall—only his second proper full-length solo record and his first for Matador after last year's excellent singles compilation—feels like an appropriate culmination of his last few years. Though hardly lacking in energy, there are times when Reatard lets his melody get downright melancholic, and everything is cleaner and cripser than he's done before, guitars dropping their distortion, snares popping, his Brit-tinged whine pushed more to the fore (most noticeable on "I'm Watching You," the only song on the aformentioned collection to survive through to the new batch).

But Watch Me Fall pushes itself beyond his single collections thanks to a refereshing unity of theme, albeit one that was also evident across his seven-inches: namely, a misanthropic nihilism tempered by Reatard's recognition that, taken too far, it might just destroy him. It's summed up most succintly on "Rotten Mind," a line from which gives the album its title: the chorus chant "I don't wanna be / I don't wanna be / be this way" caps a song that's alternately world-weary and pissed off, sick of both people and Reatard's reaction to them.

This kind of dynamic preoccupies a lot of the album (guess what "Can't Do it Anymore" is about?) and part of what elevates beyond standard punky complaining—besides Reatard's songcraft, I mean—is an actually kind of refreshing admission that change isn't really all that easy or possible for people. "It Ain't Gonna Save Me" is rife with self-loathing—it finishes with a haunting, distant repetition of "All is lost / there is no hope"—but it's matter-of-fact about it, and its underlying track belies any sense of honest depression or hopelessness. The aformentioned "I'm Watching You" has been updated from a pissy kiss-off (he called his subject a cunt) to a pretty bald-faced admission of Reatard's own fallibility (i.e. "To me / you see / I never had the touch for you"), something simultaneously more mature and honest.

This comes to a head on album closer "A Whisper (There is No Sun)," certainly the closest thing to a downer on the album. Wistful wailing and subdued snare hits eventually give way to the repeated "There is no sun for me," which points both to the darker parts of Reatard's personality and the unlikelihood that things are going to change anytime soon. It's a surprisingly self-reflective and rawly melancholy take for a guy who's more accustomed to lashing out at his emotions than wallowing in them, but it encapsulates the sentiments of Watch Me Fall pretty perfectly, and it's a welcome signpost pointing towards where Reatard may evolve next. V 

Jay Reatard
Watch Me Fall
(Matador)


 

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