Radiohead's much anticipated new long-player Amnesiac is finally out. The word(s) on the street abut this release run the gamut: it's the great pop record follow-up to last year's moody Kid A, it's the greatest thing since enriched sliced bread, it's a piece of self absorbed crap. So I had to take a break from my self imposed Led Zeppelin obsessive-compulsive fest (I'm finally reading Hammer of The Gods, Stephen Davis' top to bottom bio of the band and making my way through the Zep catalog simultaneously) and give Amnesiac a few spins for myself.

The record starts out on the right foot with the tense, moody, synthetic "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box.". Track two is "Pyramid Song," a Lennon-esque piano dirge that features some rather strange stuttery fucked up timing that makes the song both infectious and annoying at the same time; I'd just like to know if these guys actually played this stuff or just programmed it. "Pull/Pulk Revolving Doors" brings to mind a desolate London tube station and could serve as a decent soundtrack to a remake of A Clockwork Orange. "You and Whose Army" is kind of a mid-period Beatles kind of thing that ends just as it's beginning to build steam, which is by design I suppose. We wouldn't want to engage our audience too much, now would we? A real live guitar propels "I Might Be Wrong" into the realm of a somewhat normal song structure and is probably the big "hit" on the record and is actually very, very cool. "Knives Out" is a pretty mellow track that seems pretty much like a Kid A outtake, and "Morning Bell/Amnesiac" is simply a reprise from Kid A as well. The subtle jazziness and heavy echo of "Dollars and Cents" make for a tough call between art and pretense, and "Hunting Bears" is a wanky studio guitar rehearsal that goes absolutely nowhere. "Like Spinning Plates" is another soundtrack/soundscape, this time with backwards tracks moving it along: prog rock indeed. Amnesiac wraps with "Life In A Glasshouse" which is actually a pretty straightup reading of a Dixieland funeral march via the UK, circa 2001.

So what's the deal? Amnesiac is pretty cool. I don't think it has the couple of absolutely great tracks like "Idioteque" or "The National Anthem" from Kid A, and doesn't seem to send the same shivers up my spine (at least not yet), but it's no slouch either. My recommendation: slip both discs into the changer, hit scramble, and see how it works - that's what Radiohead should have done in the first place. Now, back to those Led Zep bootlegs...

-Clancy Carroll

Milk
04.07.01