Bought this late last week after reading nice things said about it here. Listened to a few blog tracks and was unimpressed, to tell the truth, but decided to shell out anyway, as a gesture of thanks/respect to Jay for totally fucking rocking so damn hard for so damn long.
After spinning it a few times over the holiday weekend, I'm starting to come around. First listen, all I got was the furious speed and disassociative pop vibe, but then I wasn't really giving it the necessary volume. Some great, great songs here. A million times better and more consistent than anything Jay did with The Lost Sounds - a band I never quite warmed to. I need more time, but it feels like one of the best punk/rock records I've heard this year. Certainly the best thing that In the Red has put out lately (and, yeah, that includes Sparks).
But this is a fucking ugly record, people. Sure, the cover art is kinda funny in its deliberate gruesomeness, but it's awful damn creepy, too. It's a deliberate fuck-you to any commercial potential the album may have had, and it oozes tortured self-loathing (among other things). Those aren't just blood splatters on the back cover, either. There's bits of mangled liver or shit or something mixed in there with the red stuff. Tends to undercut the sugar rush a little, you know?
And it's a concept album about killing women! Every single song is a first-person butcher's confessional. Sad, wounded, angry and violent. For all the pop smarts, it's an overwhelmingly bleak and savage record. The relentlessly speedy angst-punk, initially reminiscent of the Adverts (whose "We Who Wait" is covered here) or an unfriendly version of the Buzzcocks, eventually reveals a kind of frenzied emptiness that's somehow more terrifying than the blood-soaked misogyny of the lyrics.
It's weird. It's hard to deal with. I'm not sure how I feel about it, and I guess that's half the appeal. Knowing nothing about Jay's life, I'm tempted to see it as a break-up record. Are we supposed to read Blood Visions as an emo-style murder-of-love parable? The slamming door at the end encorages that, but I don't really care, and I guess it's beside the point.
Great record. Not for everyone, perhaps, but none the worse for that. A late, strong contender in my personal top 10.
P.S. Anyone else notice that "Nightmares" (one of the best songs on the album) is awful damn similar to the Wipers' "What Is?" I'm not complaining, mind, just saying...
― adam beales (pye poudre), Tuesday, 26 December 2006 19:23 (seventeen years ago) link
Also, last night I went and bought what is, I gather, the Angry Angles' 4th (?) 7" single: "Apparent-Transparent" & "You Fell In" b/w an AMAZING cover of Wire's "The 15th" -- like offa 154, doncha know.
Band is Jay Reatard on vox/gtr and Alix Brown on vox/bss. Skinny tie/louver spex wave-pop uber alles. Yeah, it's throwback shit, but it's also personal, committed throwback shit, and that makes all the difference. "Apparent-Transparent" is itchy 'n' fast, while "You Fell In" is more on the dreamy-strange tip. Maybe when I call the Wire cover the real standout, I'm damning the AAngles with faint praise, but what they do with the song is at least as interesting as the tune itself.
Fast becoming obsessed with all things Reatard related, and considering hauling out the Lost Sounds for a re-appraisal. Were they ever anywhere near this good?
― adam beales (pye poudre), Wednesday, 27 December 2006 18:20 (seventeen years ago) link