Rating: 6/10

Thom Yorke's musical persona seems like a moth drawn to the porch light of what Cat Power's Chan Marshall calls "the psychological horror of being the 'lead singer.'" His fey voice fluttering with the buzzing inconstancy of quickly-beaten wings, Yorke liltingly lets loose with wracked-man wailings across almost the entire set. His slurred, sobby singing is the spiritual constant of an album that exists happily as an unhappy cousin to the dour, divide-the-troops turn of Kid A. Recorded "on location at the same time" as that album, Amnesiac charts similar waters, its bizarre and beguiling pop songs swimming in a strange sea of sound, equal parts lulling waves and dangerous rips. There's not a no-brainer rock song here, and the record is essentially chorus-free. Most of the songs come together in a similar manner, with simple, rich piano chords joined by escalating measures of sonic detritus, soon gathering to a sort of climax that ends (usually) with the song itself. The spirit of Syd Barrett seems to loom over this record more than either of the previous Radiohead longplayers, and that's not a bad thing at all.

Anthony Carew

Neumu
06.01