From Pitchforkmedia.com. A review by Brent DiCrescenzo:
>Even the heralded OK Computer has been nudged down one spot in
>Valhalla. Kid A makes rock and roll childish. Considerations on its
>merits as "rock" (i.e. its radio fodder potential, its guitar riffs,
>and its hooks) are pointless. Comparing this to other albums is like
>comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper. And not because
>it's jazz or fusion or ambient or electronic. Classifications don't
>come to mind once deep inside this expansive, hypnotic world.
>Ransom, the philologist hero of C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet
>who is kidnapped and taken to another planet, initially finds his
>scholarship useless in his new surroundings, and just tries to
>survive the beautiful new world.
>
>This is an emotional, psychological experience. Kid A sounds like a
>clouded brain trying to recall an alien abduction. It's the sound of
>a band, and its leader, losing faith in themselves, destroying
>themselves, and subsequently rebuilding a perfect entity. In other
>words, Radiohead hated being Radiohead, but ended up with the most
>ideal, natural Radiohead record yet.
>
>"Everything in Its Right Place" opens like Close Encounters
>spaceships communicating with pipe organs. As your ears decide
>whether the tones are coming or going, Thom Yorke's Cuisinarted
>voice struggles for its tongue. "Everything," Yorke belts in
>uplifting sighs. The first-person mantra of "There are two colors in
>my head" is repeated until the line between Yorke's mind and the
>listener's mind is erased.
>
>Skittering toy boxes open the album's title song, which, like the
>track "Idioteque," shows a heavy Warp Records influence. The vocoder
>lullaby lulls you deceivingly before the riotous "National Anthem."
>Mean, fuzzy bass shapes the spine as unnerving theremin choirs limn.
>Brash brass bursts from above like Terry Gilliam's animated foot.
>The horns swarm as Yorke screams, begs, "Turn it off!" It's the
>album's shrill peak, but just one of the incessant goosebumps
>raisers.
>
>After the rockets exhaust, Radiohead float in their lone orbit. "How
>to Disappear Completely" boils down "Let Down" and "Karma Police" to
>their spectral essence. The string-laden ballad comes closest to
>bridging Yorke's lyrical sentiment to the instrumental effect. "I
>float down the Liffey/ I'm not here/ This isn't happening," he sings
>in his trademark falsetto. The strings melt and weep as the album
>shifts into its underwater mode. "Treefingers," an ambient
>soundscape similar in sound and intent to Side B of Bowie and Eno's
>Low, calms after the record's emotionally strenuous first half.
>
>The primal, brooding guitar attack of "Optimistic" stomps like
>mating Tyrannosaurs. The lyrics seemingly taunt, "Try the best you
>can/ Try the best you can," before revealing the more resigned
>sentiment, "The best you can is good enough." For an album
>reportedly "lacking" in traditional Radiohead moments, this is the
>best summation of their former strengths. The track erodes into a
>light jam before morphing into "In Limbo." "I'm lost at sea," Yorke
>cries over clean, uneasy arpeggios. The ending flares with tractor
>beams as Yorke is vacuumed into nothingness. The aforementioned
>"Idioteque" clicks and thuds like Aphex Twin and Bjork's Homogenic,
>revealing brilliant new frontiers for the "band." For all the noise
>to this point, it's uncertain entirely who or what has created the
>music. There are rarely traditional arrangements in the ambiguous
>origin. This is part of the unique thrill of experiencing Kid A.
>
>Pulsing organs and a stuttering snare delicately propel "Morning
>Bell." Yorke's breath can be heard frosting over the rainy, gray
>jam. Words accumulate and stick in his mouth like eye crust.
>"Walking walking walking walking," he mumbles while Jonny Greenwood
>squirts whale-chant feedback from his guitar. The closing "Motion
>Picture Soundtrack" brings to mind The White Album, as it somehow
>combines the sentiment of Lennon's LP1 closer-- the ode to his dead
>mother, "Julia"-- with Ringo and Paul's maudlin, yet sincere LP2
>finale, "Goodnight." Pump organ and harp flutter as Yorke condones
>with affection, "I think you're crazy." To further emphasize your
>feeling at that moment and the album's overall theme, Yorke bows out
>with "I will see you in the next life." If you're not already there
>with him.
>
>The experience and emotions tied to listening to Kid A are like
>witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously
>having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax.
>It's an album of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil,
>experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet
>visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite
>yet 48 minutes. It will cleanse your brain of those little
>crustaceans of worries and inferior albums clinging inside the fold
>of your gray matter. The harrowing sounds hit from unseen angles and
>emanate with inhuman genesis. When the headphones peel off, and it
>occurs that six men (Nigel Godrich included) created this, it's
>clear that Radiohead must be the greatest band alive, if not the
>best since you know who. Breathing people made this record! And you
>can't wait to dive back in and try to prove that wrong over and over.
>
>-Brent DiCrescenzo
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---> jab | commie
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