Radiohead
Amnesiac
(EMI)

Amnesiac is the companion piece to Kid A. We're talking more isolation, unutterable anguish and fear with a more exposed interior as Amnesiac gives a freer run to emotions hinted at on Kid A, picking up where that album's 'How To Disappear Completely' left off. There is no shortage of beauty here; it's just not easy, not without pain. 'Pyramid Song' is so desolate it chills merely by association. It's the sound of whistling winds and cracking ice and emptiness so loud it hurts. Thom Yorke's voice (untreated or distorted, unlike on Kid A) slides between the piano chords, edging towards a darkness but not reaching it. The strings sweep up all before them and then leave, the memory distorted by the slightly-behind-the-beat drums.

'You And Whose Army?' is another that opens itself to the listener, all but begging you to reach in and yank out its heart. The schoolyard taunt that Yorke near-moans - "Come on if you think you can take us"" - has not a skerrick of bravado. He's not daring you to take him, he's begging you, wanting you to deliver the blow. And this is almost a lullaby too. Then there's 'Knives Out', the most recognisably "old Radiohead" track. Yorke's voice glides and caresses, the lyrics seemingly another collection of childish taunts and phrases that build on each other to leave a very adult sense of ennui.

If you come expecting the return of guitars, forget it. You may not make it past 'Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box', the opening track and, apart from the disturbing out-of-synch-with-the-world 'Like Spinning Plates', the one most obviously influenced by the electronic avant garde. With a rickety beatbox rhythm, echoey drums and two-finger synth part, it sorts out the stayers from the dabblers, even if Yorke's sense of humour also is in evidence as he sings, maybe to those grumbling fans, "After years of waiting/Nothing came I'm a reasonable man, get off my case, get off my case".

Thereafter, 'I Might Be Wrong', built on a stuttering programmed beat and a tense guitar riff, flatters to deceive for those wanting Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien to set their guitars loose, 'Dollars & Cents' is throb and gristle while 'Hunting Bears' is like John Cale playing the soundtrack to Paris, Texas.

As with Bowie's Berlin albums, Kid A and Amnesiac make more sense seen together. Their differences are marked in degrees - a bit more rhythm there, a bit more emotion there - but the thinking is the same. The resulting "double album" is superior work.

-Bernard Zuel

The Sydney Morning Herald
09.06.01