Jay Reatard: Watch Me Fall 12"

For his second solo studio album and proper Matador debut, Memphis prolific punk wunderkind Jay Reatard moved beyond his roots and recorded an album chock-full of irresistible melodies, the songs cascading with joyous hooks. He would not be Jay Reatard, however, if there wasn't a certain aggro negativity, and the song titles and lyrics do much to undercut the pop sensibility: "I’m Watching You," "Hang Them All," "Can’t Do It Anymore," "Wounded," "It Ain't Gonna Save Me." The perfect album for disaffected youth, Watch Me Fall is the last full-length released during Jay Reatard's lifetime - originally issued in 2009 as the follow-up to 2006's Blood Visions. Back in print on 120g vinyl courtesy of Matador Records.

"If his 2006 ‘debut’ (give or take 20 side-projects) ‘Blood Visions’ was a sonic cosh to the back of the head – short sharp stabs of punk energy drowning in dissonance – then ‘Watch Me Fall’ finds him with space to show off the full genius of his songwriting, turning the fuzz down, the jangle up and taking the (for him) radical decision to throw in violins and even some pianos. A lot has been made of the influence of Kiwi indie-pop label flying nun, but there’s a more obvious daddy here in those other melodic misanthropes – the Buzzcocks." - Gavin Haynes, NME

1.  It Ain’t Gonna Save Me

2.  Before I Was Caught

3.  Man Of Steel

4.  Can’t Do It Anymore

5.  Faking It

6.  I’m Watching You

7.  Wounded

8.  Rotten Mind

9.  Nothing Now

10. My Reality

11. Hang Them All

12. There Is No Sun