Led by Jay Jay (akaJay 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.
With a pedigree that includes some of the most raucous noise outfits to emerge from the Memphis scene, the Lost Sounds avoid the traps of by-the-numbers punk or southern-flavored garage rock and instead offer up a sound that is more akin to savage disco. That being said, their adventurous sonic attack is bold and sometimes abrasive. Ample melodies are buried in the din for anyone brave enough to sift through the noise to find them. A danceable disaster, the band’s chaotic post-apocalyptic new wave sound explodes from the speakers with a fuzzed-out fury that borders on collapse. Hard to categorize, the sound is something akin to Devo, Liars, Rocket from the Tombs, and the Pixies duking it out to decide who’s crazier. Obnoxiously fun, the band is a likely bit of an acquired taste for most. – Karen E. Graves