2006

What exactly are you looking for when you plunk down $10 for a punk record? Slashing guitars? Loathsome, obnoxious vocals? Feverish, chaotic energy? LOST SOUNDS / REATARDS alumnus Jay Reatard delivers it all in abundance on this, 2006's most addictive hunka plastic. Somehow, he manages to capture the relentless hooks and rapid-fire song structures of dozens of late 70s punk and post punk icons without surrendering his own indelible, blood-soaked, unruly, guitar-mad distinctiveness. The churning, spastic melodies of "Turning Blue", uncanny DEVO worship in "Waiting for Something" and start/stop madness of "Death is Forming" are but three examples of this album's front-to-back quality. File this one right next to GANG OF FOUR's "Entertainment" and WIRE's "Pink Flag", because that's where it belongs, kiddies.

Picks of the litter, 2006: