The Reatards are a band that has gained a lot of notoriety since they broke up, as they have gone on to turn underground music on its ear in bands like the Lost Sounds and Destruction Unit, but this collection of their early stuff is proof that they should be remembered on their own merits and not just as a footnote. Wait a second. What am I doing? Am I trying to analyze the Reatards? Forget that. Here’s what you need to know: it’s a forty-minute mess of wild, unhinged Memphis slop made by kids who probably weren’t old enough to drive. The sound quality is better than you might expect considering that most of it was recorded in a bedroom onto a cassette tape that has spent a few years in a dusty shoebox. It’s worth getting just for the song “Teenage Hate.”
–josh (Empty)