Blood Visions was, for many, the first exposure to the jimmy-legging tunefulness and frantic musicianship of the late Jay Reatard, and it was the record that pushed him into a spotlight that at times seemed more like a moving target than like anything that might bring focus to the person behind the music. But there had been a path to that solo career, one that led from myriad earlier projects and one-offs which showcased a talent that couldn't be reined in. The last of those projects before his breakthrough was a collaboration with Alix Brown, formerly of punk band The Lids. Together they started a label (Shattered Records) and a new duo, known as Angry Angles. Brown played bass, sang and collaborated on songwriting; Reatard did the rest.
As major-label bands in the early part of the '00s worked hard to let us know that rock was "back," scenes in cities like Memphis, Austin and Atlanta proved more than willing to kill rock dead — all the better to shove its lifeless fingers into a wall socket and shock it back to life in their own image. Existing from 2004 through 2006, Angry Angles wasted no time making its mark on the next wave of a garage and punk underground whose moment was about to boil over. An about-face from Reatard's epic synth-punk outfit Lost Sounds, the duo turned to the hooks of punk in '78 and the tension of early, jagged new wave, spread across a small handful of singles that vanished if you weren't in the right place at the right time. "You Fell In" is an exemplary display of Angry Angles' power and potential. Three spring-loaded chords bounce across four bars as Reatard sings about othering situations ("creatures hiding in their holes," likened to reading someone's diary) before turning frantic in a chorus that winds up the intensity to a crescendo, capped off with a blood-caking scream.
It's worth noting that Angry Angles was Jay Reatard's final collaboration — his solo records were just that, solo, with him playing all the instruments — but without it, the path he took to Blood Visions and beyond would be more difficult to fathom. Music like that didn't naturally come out of isolation, and it was this brief period with Alix Brown that turned him in the direction for which he'll be remembered. This month, Goner Records memorializes the brief flash of Angry Angles' music with a self-titled compilation containing all 16 of the recordings made by the group, along with a digital download of its live set at Gonerfest 3. There, the duo opens with an early version of "Blood Visions," the writing already on the wall.
Angry Angles comes out May 20 on Goner Records.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.