Thom Yorke, The Eraser -- Review

I question Thom Yorke's motive(s) for making this record. Certainly he's had enough room to stretch the creative boundaries of what defines his band, radiohead, so it's not as though he's branching out and trying new things. In fact, this solo-record-that-isn't-a-solo-record sounds like it was cribbed from the Kid A/Amnesiac recording sessions. So he's not breaking any new ground. Fine. But that then begs the question "what is he trying to do?" Get all the electronic stuff out of his system in order to gear up for the next radiohead album, which will be a return to the arena rock sound of The Bends?

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Still, Thommy is my motherfucking boy, and I won't fake moves on the genres he employs. As big a fan of radiohead's sophomore and junior albums as I am, I'm equally fond of the genius that would follow with Kid A and Amnesiac. And although 2003's Hail to the Thief is, like you, not entirely what I want it to be, in 2006 I'm still in full-on fanatic mode. If Thom wants to populate an entire album with sitars, pots and pans, I'm there.

So how's the album? We'll get to that in a sec, but first I want to make a few points/comments:

1) The only thing which differentiates this from a radiohead album is a distinct lack of guitars. And, no, I'm not being cheeky. The gang's all here, for the most part: Nigel Godrich produces, Jonny Greenwood contributes very little (OK, now I am being cheeky), and Stanley Donwood does the art.

2) Obviously jewel cases are NOT rock-and-roll. Way to rage against my CD rack, Thom.

3) Nifty! My copy came with a promotional bus pass holder. Think I'm lyin'?

Now that IS rock-and-roll. Totally better than the fake library book (w/ card) that came with my copy of Amnesiac.

Totally.

The Eraser

Hey, just like that old CBS drama starring Edward Woodward! No wait, that was The Equalizer. Anyway, the piano on this is great. As is Thom's crooning. Please excuse me but I got to ask/ are you only being nice because you want something? Then he actually does a bit of meta-songwriting by singing Be careful how you respond/ because you'd not end up in this song (the last part actually sounds more like because you might end up in this song, but whatever). If I didn't know better, I'd say that this was a break-up song. As in "I'm pissed at my band mates and going solo."

That's not the case, right?

Right!?

Analyse

British spelling. Dig it. Not a particularly good song, but Yorke, perhaps realizing the fact, makes up for it at the end by contorting his voice in all manner of directions.

The Clock

A fantastic song, even though a) the drum track appears to be lifted directly from Idioteque, and b) the vocal melody resembles Morning Bell a little too closely.

The humming kicks ass, though.

(By the way, I'm right with you in wishing that my use of letters of the alphabet to illustrate points soon comes to an abrupt halt. Please bear with me; it's just a phase I'm going through.)

Black Swan

Probably the album's best song. Groovy. Seriously, I want to groove. I want to move and groove. Bonus: my wife yelled at me for listening to it while my daughter was in the room. Could have something to do with the word 'fuck' being used roughly 89,000 times in the span of 5 minutes.

Skip Divided

Hey, I'm not adverse to blips and beeps, which this album has in spades; but this song is simply not very good. Scratch that, it's fucking terrible. No effort at all appears to have been put into it. Thom doesn't even bother to sing, and ad libs near the end to disastrous, unintentionally-hilarious results. This is like watching MJ when he came back to play for the Wizards. Just an outright debacle.

Atoms For Peace

OK, that's better. This is Thom's best vocal performance of the album, even if he does sound like a sleepy kid who doesn't want to get up for school.

And It Rained All Night

What do you know, it really did rain all night last night. And the night before. And tonight.

Topical.

Replace the whining croon of the previous track with a cocksure swagger. When he sings But I can never reach you it's nothing short of beautiful.

Harrowdown Hill

Who played bass on this? Because it really steals the show. Instead of giving you my long-winded explanation of what the song's about, please read here.

The song is also notable for containing 26 seconds of guitar. And what a great 26 seconds they were!

Sarcasm aside, this really is a terrific song.

Cymbal Rush

Two vocal tracks are used here. Not a big fan. Also not a big fan of naming a song 'CYMBAL Rush' and then not delivering on the cymbals. Motherfucker pulled the same thing on the Amnesiac track Like Spinning Plates. I mean, I know what spinning plates sound like. I'm not stupid.

Conclusion 1: It's a good album, maybe even a very good album...but it's not thrilling. It lacks thrills. It is thrill deficient. I was hoping it would be the best album I've heard so far this year, but alas. That honor still goes to The Strokes's First Impressions of Earth (I will not argue this).

Conclusion 2: This would be a very worthy addition to the radiohead oeuvre were it not for the fact that we'll likely have to wait another year or two (or three, or four, or...) until the band's seventh studio album is released. Maybe it's just me, but I'm a stickler for momentum; and this album, while good, doesn't exactly have me anticipating the next radiohead CD with bated breath.

Which is weird.

Conclusion 3: 4/5 *_*