Flak Magazine: Radiohead's Amnesiac, 06.05.01

It shouldn't be hard to believe — that the band who put out a movie about its isolation, turned "1984" into "Utopia" on an album about computers, and frosted that with a metaphorical tale about a kid bred from that world, is not going to provide an accurate Liz Smith-style "Radiohead's hot gossip from the studio board" report about its next album on the eve of its predecessor's release.

Rest assured, Amnesiac is packed with music as brilliant as you'd expect one of the world's best bands to deliver in the prime of its career, but cohesive it is not. And note the absence of the word "rock" from the haughty "world's best bands" label. Radiohead flips genres so often that to call Amnesiac a rock record would be lazy.

The album isn't Radiohead's best, though "Pyramid Song" is arguably the group's finest moment. Its jazz vocal sounds little like any other Radiohead track, but still touches the listener emotionally in that special Radiohead way. Starting as a simple piano-and-vocal tune, the song builds from the beginning, easing in strings and a jazz drum beat, assembling itself toward a crescendo so undeniably moving one might be moved to label it: precious as a thin feather lying on a dew-soaked flower. I call it a "Radiohead Heart-Stomper Song."

The other R.H.S.S. is the slowed-down, glockenspiel-tinged Pet Sounds reworking of "Morning Bell." Already one of Kid A's best moments, the song's percussion- and glockenspiel-driven redo will incite some fine debates as to which version is better. Call it a draw, but taking one song, presenting it in two radically different forms on back-to-back albums, and succeeding with both is something only Radiohead can get away with.

Another quandary worthy of examination is the selections of radio singles by Radiohead's respective U.K./U.S. record companies. While the Brits will be hearing the demanding "Pyramid Song," the tattooed/pierced/special-K-ingesting lot on this side of the pond will be rocking along with "i might be wrong," a meaty, beat-happy tune with a twangy riff dumped on top. It sounds something like the mindless evil twin of Beck's "Loser." Is this a case of low culture or low expectations? You decide!

That's not to say "i might be wrong" doesn't hold appeal. It's not a written-for-radio song, and the ending part, which will be edited out for radio play, is a fine variation on the track.

Two tracks on Amnesiac are in the electronic vein. "packt like sardines in a crushed tin box" leads off the album, and sounds like a lite version of "Idiotheque," from Kid A. The Aphex Twin-like track is mixed with some pots-and-pans percussion and the oh-so-Thom Yorke refrain: "I'm a reasonable man/get off my case." It's a curious starter for a band whose last two albums have been so unified, but again, predictability is not what Amnesiac is about.

Track 3, "pulk/pull revolving doors," sounds like the "band messing around in the studio, going outside for a fag and leaving the tape running" song. We get the return of the dissonant computer voice, except this time it's buried under a furry beat and some piano noodling.

There are actually two tracks on Amnesiac that just sound like good ol' Radiohead. File the moody (see?), emotive (see?) "Knives Out" along with the mid-tempo pieces on The Bends, a great album that gets further buried (and bettered) with each successive Radiohead release. The other, "you and whose army?" sounds like Yorke is singing through a vintage microphone. Some critics will inevitably take the time to look up what kind of microphone and impress you with their fact-finding skills.

There's a brief temptation to call Amnesiac Kid A: Odds and Sods, particularly when considering the minor guitar instrumental "hunting bears" and the backward "like spinning plates," a song that will please only Stone Roses fans who thought the band were being artistic when reversing the tape on "Waterfall."

At the same time there's no temptation to burden Amnesiac with that moniker. This is Kid A's Bizarro-world brother, fractured, but the same guy in many ways — same studio, same time period, Nigel Goodrich at the controls, no mirror necessary. Just two willing ears.

Who would have thought the band that deems the planet defective in every note it writes would become the most dependable thing on it?

— Aaron Tassano (aaronaroundthecorner@yahoo.com)