Rating: 99/100

What are we going to do if – and heaven forbid – Radiohead ever release a bad record? The world would stop turning, blood will cease to flow, life no longer exist. You’d presume. It’s been so long since Radiohead released a ‘bad’ record – that’s even if you consider their debut, Pablo Honey, as actually ‘bad’, rather than merely inconsistent – and their standard has been so high over the last four albums in particular, you just can’t imagine it happening.

Amnesiac has been unfairly (and unrealistically) cast as a more commercial, easier follow-up to last year’s Kid A. But exactly what was so difficult about that record in the first place? Yes, the use of the traditional Radiohead instruments – two guitars, bass, drums – was cast aside in favour of a more experimental approach. And, for the most part, Amnesiac continues this approach – the first five tracks in particular are similar in style, substance and motive to the tracks on Kid A. It’s not until the guitar of “I Might Be Wrong” kicks in that Amnesiac really begins to differ and disassociate itself from it’s predecessor.

It’s interesting that both were completely recorded at the same time, and it will certainly be interesting to see what’s said of Amnesiac in the wake of Kid A. For starters, Kid A actually appears more tuneful in retrospect, whereas tracks like the pulsating opener “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box”, “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors”, the Blair-baiting diatribe “You and Whose Army?” and “Like Spinning Plates” are even more non-typical and drone-y than anything on Kid A, whereas on these tracks it’s seemingly more about the amalgam of sound rather than any actual tune. Yet, somehow, it works. “You and Whose Army?” is particularly effective, with frontman Thom Yorke singing in a gentle lilt, while the music constantly pushes and pulls against itself.

The middle section of songs – “I Might Be Wrong”, “Knives Out”, “Morning Bell/Amnesiac” and “Dollars and Cents” – are the most organic and ‘natural’ sounding Radiohead have been since the days of OK Computer. “Dollars and Cents” is particularly amazing, with the swell of a complete orchestra pushing the song along, giving it rises and swells, and sounding utterly amazing over a jazz-type rhythm feel. “Hunting Bear” is a short, brief instrumental interlude of pausing guitar sounds, whilst closer “Life in a Glasshouse” is perhaps the crowning achievement of Amnesiac, with a brass sound that again portrays a slight jazz feel.

To say that Amnesiac is amazing is an understatement. Kid A was brilliant, too, but this record actually manages to top it and seemingly achieve the timelessness of the Bends and OK Computer. To say that there’s no other band quite like Radiohead, or prepared to push and challenge themselves like Radiohead, is such an obvious statement that it doesn’t need saying, suffice to say that they’re a one in a generation sort of act. They can change your life without ever making a huge difference, just by doing something different to the mainstream, something different to the alternative, and something distinctly unique.

The Electric Newspaper
07.06.01