WSUM - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
Jay Reatard (of Reatards fame) puts out another near perfect effort here with his side project The Lost Sounds. Not quite the roaring punk assault that I'd anticipated, the music takes the Reatards and drops them somewhere between 60's garage greats like the Thirteenth Floor Elevators and the soundtracks to late 80's Nintendo games like Metroid. The range of style is pretty broad, but the keyboard is the integral part of every song, and they manage to pull it off without sounding overly artsy. It's genuinely dark and disturbing, with all the fury I've come to expect from a release on Big Neck records. Overall, this album should destroy any doubts of Jay Reatard's musical ability, and it has me looking forward to many years of his work to come.
SMALLPUNK.COM - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
This is different. I've never really heard anything quite like it. I don't really know how to explain it. A keyboard, guitar, bass and drums are used to make an extremely spooky sound. There are male and female vocals and they go back and forth from screaming to singing which make it interesting. The keyboard is one of the main instruments rather then leaving it in the back so you can't really hear it, like some other bands I've listened to before. Another neat little fact that it says here on the back of the cd is that the cd was recorded on an 8 track before putting on to a cd.
I like this cd a lot. The first three songs were the highlights for me. "Ship of Monsters", "It's My Dream" and "Satan Bought Me" rocked very hard. The vocals are prefect for their style of music and the screaming comes at the best times during the song.
The Lost Sounds are really spooky, not "Korn" kind of spooky. The good kind of spooky. More of an "old cheesy horror movie" spooky. The Lost sounds talk about being a witch, and you can find more then one Satan reference in "Memphis is Dead".
"Memphis is Dead" has some great art on it too.
GARBAGE DUMP FANZINE - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
First album for a strange band where the crazy Jay Reatard plays too... so you know you can expect some teenage anger in here, and that's what you get, but in a different way than the Reatards do: this time there's also a girl singing, and an organ involved. The result is a musical mayhem that ranges from typical dirty garage-punk numbers to slow killer ballads like "Its my dream", one of the best numbers, sick, slow, distorted and extremely scary. This is kinda like a bluesy-spooky-r'n'r tale played in 13 acts... have maybe 13 songs been chosen to add more sinister charm to the whole mess?Check it out, if your heart is black.
RAZORCAKE - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
Some absolutely crazed music here. Take the intesity of a band like Le Shok, add a dash of goth, a smidge of hardcore, and a veritable truckload of '60s trash and you still ain't even close boyo. A nice example of how to take disparate influences, mush them all together and make something all your own. Great noise here, to be played loud nad taken in conjunction with large amounts of aspirin.
PUNK PLANET - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
Finally, somebody pushing the musical limits. While still overly garagey sounding, partially due to their state of the art eight track recording style and that they cover the Lollipop Shoppe's
classic, "You Must Be a Witch," The Lost Sounds find the nerve in the oo's to mix goth, surf, punk, garage, pop, and new wave without falling completely or neatly into any category.
The keyboard drenched music adds a nice level of creepiness to their darksided lyrics all of which is nicely offset with their willingness to add inventive touches to each genre. The CD
gets better and better as it goes from song to song finally smacking you in the end with the one two knockout punch of "When I Lose It" and "Soul For Sale". This was a great antidote
to the macho rock n roll punk that I had to review this time around.
CAUSTIC TRUTHS - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
This band features two members of The Reatards and a smashing cover of "You Must Be a Witch" (Lollipop Shop). The trio attacks each song with rapaciousness in this raw,
eight track recording. The analog keyboards and primitive guitar rhythms suggest '60's garage rock, but the monstrous distortion and anti-pop attitude suggest early Wire.
MAXIMUM ROCK-N-ROLL - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
Weird ass, creepy surfy sountrack music with gurgling electronic sounds. First song sounds like a psycho-surf take on the soundtrack for the
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or something. Other tunes have this low-keyed creepoid vocals which turns into a huge echoed bellow. In other words,
THIS SHIT ROCKS!! DEFIES ALL EXPECTATIONS of surf/soundtracks/psych which its part of yet not really. Man, this is indescribable and excellent.
Gets the creepiness thing fully in a way I have not felt in a long time! Alternates always between put-your-arm-down the throat queasiness to sheer
fucked up rage (listen to "Satan Bought Me" and tell me it does not freak you out!!). Check ou the fuckin' weird vocals in "Inside My Head". Some
of htis stuff truly has that psycho-ward, church organ goes surf vibe. I kid you not. There's some strange shit going on in Memphis.
Best thing I've heard in many months, hands down. Moody and fucked up, I like that.
BLANKGENERATION.COM - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
How fitting it was to receive this CD on a dark and stormy Wednesday evening. Sounding like a sinister fusion of Castlevania and Wire, the Lost Sounds have
exploded into the future, today. This record is a time capsule sent to us by our progeny, Terminator style. One guitar, one keyboard, one drum kit. The cause
for this CD was inevitable. The walls around punk rock are crumbling. Shawn sees it, Kenny sees it, and soon the rest of the punk culture shall see it. The Lost
Sounds, Le Tigre, The Piranhas, they’re only the beginning. Leave your pop punk records at the door. Leave your street punk records at the door. Leave your
garage records at the door. You won’t need them where you’re going…
CYCLOPS ZINE - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
The Lost Sounds' "Memphis Is Dead" is the latest full-length record from the fabulous Big Neck Records. They hail from Memphis so how could they be bad? The
Lost Sounds are Jay and Rich from the Reatards and Alicja from the Fitts. I saw them in the winter of 2000 and they were maniacal live. This record is like some
New Wave/Punk Rock thing from Hell. The album starts out with the instrumental "Ship of Monsters." Lots of cheesy organ and crazy sound effects. Sounds like it
should be the theme sound to a John Michael McCarthy exploitation flick. "Satan Bought Me" has Alicja screaming over organ and guitar flourishes about the hell
that is her boyfriend. "Satan came to get me the day I got with you. All the angels left me and there's nothing I can do." It ends in a climax of screams of "Satan
bought me! Satan bought me! Satan bought me! Satan bought me!" "Inside My Head" is a New Wave song with Jay's punk rock wail over substituted for the
standard snotty English accent. "I've Lost It" starts with some melodramatic keyboards and then kicks into a little rocker complete with guitar solo. It dissolves into
Jay's screams, feedback and keyboard noises. On "Don't Bother Me" Alicja has some truly nasty vocals. She sounds like the wicked witch of the west after
swallowing a glass of battery acid. "Soul For You" starts off as a punk rocker with all of the crazy keyboards; it has a little quite keyboard solo with the guitars and
keyboards building back into frenzy and finally a quite afterglow. So if you're up for some truly crazy keyboard fueled rock 'n roll the Lost Sounds are for you.
ROCKTOBER - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
Perhaps the best record ever made. That said, these horror-ific collectiions of nasty Satanic vintage keyboard Soul music
for lost souls combines 60s style instrumentals with death metal theory with crank induced absurdity with barbecue sauce
and curses it all at a black mass. All hail!!
GARAGE AND BEAT - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
Often disturbing music from a three piece that draws much of their inspiration from the world of the occult. The band features guitar, keyboards,
drums, vocals, and random shrieks. Rhythmic and listenable yet evocative of such titles as "Satan Bought Me," "Ship of Monsters"(my favorite, a
cool instrumental piece), "Disease" and "You Must Be A Witch." There's lots of variety; it's not all thrash and scream.
DETROITMUSIC/OUTSIGHT.COM - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
This band features two members of The Reatards and a smashing cover of "You
Must be a Witch" (LolliPop Shoppe). The trio attacks each song with
rapaciousness in this raw, eight-track recording. The analog keyboards and
primitive guitar rhythms suggest '60's garage rock, but the monstrous
distortion and anti-pop attitude suggests early Wire.
SMASHING TRANSISTORS - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
New Wave. Not in the bright & colorful "let's put on leg warmers, drink Tab and go to the mall" way but the brooding "Welcome to the spooky side of my mind" thing.
Like the Stranglers. "IV" to be exact. Korg monopolys blurting around obnoxious fuzz and maybe a backhanded compliement to early Cabaret Voltaire getting vertigo at
a surf show. Everyone is flipping out about Jay Reatard being in the band but just as much credit has to go to Alicja. She was once in a band called the Clears. They
were a true New Wave package. She knows her way around this stuff (and probably played Jay The Stranglers "IV" album cuz he had never heard it before) and gets her
fair chunk of the spotlight. Break out the black lipstick. Yeah! The mall in this cowtown now has a Hot Topic! Woo-Hoo! The goof in the Billy Idol t-shirt that
works there would not "get" this. Being a teenager in the 80's kids got there asses kicked by roving gangs of rocker rednecks in brown Frye boots for looking half
as weird as that guy (I felt revenge was had when Rob Halford officially annouced that he was gay. The guy that had the locker next to me got pounded once for telling
that to someone)This is the sound of all the suckerpunched by the Galaga game kids getting together in one room and planning an action to kill.
TRASH TIMES - THE LOST SOUNDS "MEMPHIS IS DEAD" LP or CD
This album is a bit hard to configure stylewise. Sure they cover "You Must Be A Witch" by Fred Cole's Lollipop Shoppe, but it would not be accurate to call these
cats a garage band. For example, the very next track starts out with some loud and wimpy keyboards. On this song, "Disease" there is much yelling vocals and lyrical
angst to counter balance the aforementioned spacy keys. "I've Lost It," is a frantic 60s style organ grinder with Jay Reatard going nuts on top. Overall, this is a keeper
if not a bit of a change from my typical listening habits.
