Rating: 3.9/4.0

Amnesiac was rumored to be a return to the Radiohead’s traditional-rock roots. It’s not. According to Radiohead vocalist Thom Yorke, the band has no intentions of ever returning the style of music they played on earlier CDs like The Bends. Instead, this band is stripping their music down to its barest essentials and then rebuilding from the bottom up, rethinking every step along the way. The results are sometimes ugly (as evidenced by the weaker tracks on 2000’s Kid A and again on Amnesiac), but the results are also astounding at times.

The title Amnesiac comes from something Yorke read on the early Gnostics, who believed that all people have to go through a painful process of forgetting their past-lives in order to be born again into a new life. Yorke took this “river of amnesia” as a central theme that is carried throughout the 45-minutes of Amnesiac. At times, Radiohead even appear to be acting out some of their own past lives, both real and imagined. “Knives Out,” for example, sounds like a leftover from the band’s Pablo Honey sessions. On “You and Whose Army,” the band exhume their past life as a lounge act (albeit one with a wicked sense of humor). The disc closes with “Life In A Glass House,” which is Radiohead imagining a past life as a New Orleans jazz combo.

Amnesiac opens with “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box.” The song begins with a metallic clanging loop worthy of Aphex Twin, and it serves as the first indication that this is not your older brother’s Radiohead. It’s a song intended to cleanse the palette, much in the same way that “Everything In Its Right Place” set the table for the rest of Kid A. It’s a solid opening track that leaves listeners clueless as to what might possibly come next.

What actually comes next may very well be the best song Radiohead has ever recorded. “Pyramid Song,” with its combination of piano chord melodies, string synths and Yorke's haunting vocals, is a stunningly beautiful song about the afterlife and the comfort of knowing that there is more to experience after we die. A lush string arrangement adds a bit of an Egyptian flavor to the track, which might explain why this song was once called “Egyptian Song.”

After the epic beauty of “Pyramid Song,” Radiohead takes a step off the edge with “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors.” This track is a bizarre drum-and-bass experiment with Yorke repeating distorted mantras such as "Doors that lock and doors that don't." “You and Whose Army” follows with Radiohead in full lounge mode. With the band playing some of its most relaxed music and Yorke singing in a very laid-back manner, it would be easy to miss the fact that “You and Whose Army” features some of Radiohead’s most confrontational lyrics. The drowsy performance, combined with lyrics such as, “Come on if you think you can take us on” makes “You and Whose Army” a masterpiece of creative juxtaposition. “You and Whose Army” is followed by “I Might Be Wrong,” which is easily the disc’s most accessible track and the first American single from Amnesiac. In the rest of the world, “Pyramid Song” will be the first single, but Radiohead’s record label thought American audiences would be more attracted to the semi-dance beat and swirling guitars of “I Might Be Wrong.” The band employs a little more juxtaposition on “Knives Out,” as they set some of their most morbid lyrics to a tune reminiscent of the work of the Morrissey and the Smiths. The song, which Yorke once introduced as a song “about cannibalsim,” contains lines such as "If you'd been born a dog/they would have drowned you at birth."

After “Knives Out,” Amnesiac enters its weakest section. “Amnesiac/Morning Bell” is a haunting and different arrangement of this song, which originally appeared on Kid A. Next up is “Dollars and Cents,” which was possibly inspired by Yorke’s public support of the “Drop the Debt” campaign. “Hunting Bears” is the only throwaway track on the disc and, fortunately, the shortest track on Amnesiac.

Amnesiac closes with a strong pair of tracks. “Like Spinning Plates” is one of the most challenging songs Radiohead has ever attempted. Two very separate rhythms compete for the listener’s attention here. One of the rhythms resembles turntable scratching, while the other is actually an unreleased Radiohead song being played backwards. Yorke actually sang the vocals for this song as they sounded when played backwards. He then had the actual tape of his voice played backwards so that he sounds as if he’s singing it forwards on the CD. The overall effect is haunting and mesmerizing.

Amnesiac comes to a close with “Life in a Glass House,” a song the band has been playing at sound checks for years. This song has been described as “Radiohead meets Benny Goodman” thanks to the jazz combo sound and the contributions of renowned jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttleton. The song, which describes the band’s feelings about fame and the whole process of living their lives under intense media scrutiny, ends Amnesiac by linking the band’s imagined past to its very real present situation.

In many ways, Amnesiac is even more experimental and ground-breaking than Kid A. On Amnesiac, however, Radiohead sounds less detached and analytical. These songs maintain their human qualities despite the numerous electronic sounds and mysterious studio effects. Whether or not you enjoy the direction in which Radiohead is heading, there’s no denying that the band’s creativity and originality are in abundance on Amnesiac. No other rock band is aiming nearly as highly as Radiohead these days. Like The Bends, Kid A and OK Computer before it, Amnesiac is an album that will influence and inspire other artists and musicians for years to come.

For The Record
09.01