Amnesiac - review

Amnesiac: an experience. Like all recent Radiohead stuff, the vapours can often be difficult to inhale, and that's never been the case more so than on Amnesiac. Their experimentation on the previous album Kid A, opened a lot of doors to hip-hop heads like myself, and this record opens even more doors, to who exactly... I couldn't tell you. Kid A was nearly always easy on the ear, despite being a complex record for it's time, musically and aesthetically, it all came together by the end of the album. Now compare that to Amnesiac, which is decidedly rougher on your ears. Amnesiac is like a dose of modern/post-modern/post-post-modern life in a pill that has a sweet aftertaste but is hard to swallow because of it's uncomprimising shape. Yes, that's exactly what Amnesiac is.

That harsh musical landscape is really well visualised on one of the songs that I originally couldn't stand, Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors. To fully appreciate this modern mayhem you need speakers that allow you to hear the harsh base drum pounding like the spirit of hardcore hip-hop gone wild somewhere in the jungles of Vietnam. As with Kid A, Thom Yorkes voice is fully filtered and distorted here, to the point that you can't always hear whatever simple, yet profound metaphor he's trying to squeeze out of his anguished belly.

The moods range from abrasive to the more sombre/slack tracks like You and whose army, the lazy beat here is matched perfectly by Thom Yorkes voice, and as the song develops it turns into what can only be described as an anti-establishment anthem. Yorke's position is captured well with the classic and cheeky jibes, "You and whose army? You and your cronies!?! Come on, Come on, Holy Roman empire!" On the LP's more sedate moments however, the lyrics are more beautiful poetry than social commentary. The Pyramid Song, probably one of albums best tracks, sees Yorke describing his unique vision of the afterlife. A haunting track that demands silence and mental-imagery from it's listeners:

"I jumped in the river and what did I see?
Black-eyed angels swam with me.
A moon full of stars and astral cars.
All the things I used to see.
All my lovers were there with me,
All my past and futures.
And we all went to heaven in a little row boat,
There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt.."

It's not often you hear something on a piano that is completely fresh-sounding, as painful or depressing to some as The Pyramid Song may sound, it is in fact an extremely positive piece of music, and it hurts your mind to concieve just how talented someone has to be to write something as moving as this. The jazzy drums fuse amazingly with the piano, and the georgeous strings that come crashing in towards the end, which incidentally, are extremely reminiscent of 'old-school' Arab music such as Um Kalthoum. As well as this, on other tracks, most notably Like Spinning Plates there is a really eastern vibe to the singing style of Thom Yorke, almost as if he were a Mullah calling people to prayer in a Mosque somewhere in the hustle and bustle of Algeria's city streets... only that doesn't quite fit his image.

Amnesiac was an odd album for a summer release, and yet somehow it worked. While the uplifting, but rather edgeless Life in a Glass House ends the album on a high, if slightly plain, note, the whole experience is definitely a positive one. This album proves that Radiohead are still the visionary rollercoaster controllers that they've made themselves into. The music is effortlessly different and powerful, the songs are as varied in terms of genres as anything I've ever heard. Well... anything since their last album anyway. To put it as simple as possible, this is an experience I recommend.

Y.Misdaq aka Yoshi