Rating: 7/10

Right let's get a few things straight; this record, Radiohead's fifth album is not as complete as The Bends, as excellent as OK Computer, or even as good as the experimental ramblings of Kid A. That said, Amnesiac is a fine album by anyone else's standards and it is within the context that Radiohead only bother writing excellent songs that detracts from this beautifully eclectic yet too often compromised selection of schizophrenic ideas.

Despite Thom Yorke's protestations Amnesiac is no more accessible or commercially driven than its predecessor Kid A. Current single 'Pyramid Song' may have led us to believe that they were ready to release a gleaming set of (almost) structured rock songs but really over its eleven tracks Amnesiac offers everything from ambient techno to apocalyptic orchestral rock to moody blues all the way through to freeform jazz improvisation.

Indeed the fact that these songs were written at the same time as those for Kid A is abundantly clear from the off. 'Packt Like Sardines In A Crushed Tin Box' redesigns 'Everything In It's Right Place', in that it is a confused anthem to the claustrophobic, paranoid world that Yorke claims to inhabit, as he repeats the stark mantra "I'm a reasonable man - get off my case." The cut up guitar grind of 'I Might Be Wrong' is cautiously optimistic while 'Knives Out' rumbles along awash with guitars dragging us back down into the airless vault we thought we'd just escaped from. Elsewhere with the assistance of octogenarian jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttleton, the Oxford quintet turn closer 'Life In A Glass House' into a deathly funeral march.

Sadly these breathtakingly beautiful songs are all glued together with weaker half-baked ideas. The cut-up Squarepusher/Aphex Twin grind of 'Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors' obliterates any sense of melody and its musical shifts speak to the head rather than the heart. While 'Like Spinning Plates' sounds, well, frankly, too muck like spinning plates, constantly revolving but never going anywhere.

As with Kid A Radiohead have contrived a number of avant-garde innovative musical statements, but the lack of continuity cannot hide the fact that Radiohead are still hanging in a period of transition. One hopes that as Yorke and co become more comfortable with their, admittedly, worthwhile desire to push musical boundaries they can produce an album as complete as it is experimental.

-Chris Nye-Browne

Music365
01.06.01