Led by
Jay Jay (aka
Jay Reatard of
the Reatards) and
Alicja Trout (
Clears,
River City Tanlines), Memphis'
Lost Sounds are a glorious mess of punk rock artsiness gone awry in all the right places. Their 2004 In the Red effort, simply titled
Lost Sounds, is a punk rock dance party guaranteed to merrily demolish every piece of furniture in the room. But this paranoid rampage is a far cry from the faux-sexy bass'n'drum din pumped out by the likes of
Death from Above 1979. "Those things they put inside me/ You know they make me nervous," wails
Jay through a cacophonous din of twitchy surf guitars and stuttering keyboards. Elsewhere the band declares that the end of the world is, "worth a laugh." And you get the feeling they mean it.