RADIOHEAD

This one was often nosed down as "Kid B", and this view certainly has a point: The sound is very similar, and even the mode of compositions can be compared to Kid A quite easily, although there are more song-oriented structures present on Amnesiac.

However, if you judge the music independent from its predecessor and the expectancy of another revolution of music within a year from Radiohead, one must admit that this album features clever arrangements, hypnotic production, haunting melodies, typical Thom Yorke-singing and compression-bursting guitars, booming bass... all you could ask for from Radiohead in this period, and not bad at all.

So give this album a chance. It is not just Kid B altogether.

A non-prog masterpiece with very well written songs, this is Radiohead's best step. They became the imaginative rock band we will all remember for, and this album opened many doors for many alternative rock bands. Not only this album is full of emotion (prog bands, take notes), but it is very consistent (except for the three minute R.E.M-ish Bones). From the anthemic (The Bends, Fake Plastic Trees, Black Star, Fade Out), to the heavier (Just, My Iron Lung, Planet Telex) and the softer (High And Dry, Nice Dream, Bullet Proof, Sulk), they were better than any rock band around because of their innovative thoughts. So if you want to expand your horizons and you listened to other Radiohead albums, choose this one.

This was actually the first album by Radiohead that I heard, and I came to it by a rather circuitous route--the only reason I heard it in the first place was because of the Punch Brothers' cover of the title track. But it turned out to be a worthwhile experience. This album is a peculiar and overall unique collection of post-rocky, poppish tracks with a gloomy, eerie atmosphere and an emphasis on bizarre experimentation. The end result is impressive and, at points, terrifying. The only outstanding flaw that could be ascribed to it is an occasional lack of energy. Even the more active songs that should be driving the album seem lifeless, and just as strange as the slower ones. The one exception is "Optimistic", one of the album's standouts for this very reason.

The opener, "Everything in Its Right Place", is another highlight. Like many of the tracks on the album, it contains very few instruments, consisting of only a clean chord progression with a barely noticeable bass pulse and Thom Yorke's voice. But the sound on which the chords are played, shifting from a muted electric-piano-like tone to a buzz in a seamlessly fluid way, is perfectly chosen. The chords themselves also are effective--almost triumphant, in a way. The piece is also peppered with electronically modified clips of the album's title and other incomprehensible phrases, while Yorke sings regularly on top.

Following this is the title track, which sounds quite similar in some ways, but the smoothly shifting chords have been replaced with plucking, bell-like tones, and supplemented with drums. Yorke's voice is also heavily modified in this piece. By becoming even more minimal, this piece ramps up the eeriness of the previous one, but it also doesn't hold my interest as easily.

After this, the band apparently decided to compensate for the sparing arrangements with "The National Anthem". A menacing, heavy bassline is soon covered up by a wailing chorus of brass instruments, which end up filling out the rest of the song. Small pieces of the resulting free-jazz meltdown are interesting, but the whole thing stretches on too long to sustain my attention, and it loses the drive that it tries to achieve at the beginning.

The album calms down again after this with "How To Disappear Completely", which is a pretty ballad on acoustic guitar which gradually gets overtaken by other ambient synth noises, string arrangements and a repetitive bassline. The melody is quite simple, but more than any other track on the disc, this one has emotional impact; it very clearly communicates a sense of melancholy. The ending, in which the strings suddenly spiral out of tune, is very effective.

After this comes an interlude in the form of "Treefingers". This track is a very slow, instrumental, and completely ambient piece, with no melody, but rather subtle shifts between bell-like tones. This gets boring very quickly for me, and while it would be ideal in the position of background music, it falls somewhat flat on its own.

Fortunately, after everything grinds to a halt with "Treefingers", the album picks up speed again with "Optimistic". It's one of the most guitar-dominated pieces on the disc, but it still keeps a droning feel throughout. The chorus breaks out of the drone with an ascending guitar pattern backed by a perfect chord progression, and gradually other sounds begin to come in over the drone and leave. What really makes this song, however, is the chord progressions--while this contains much less sonic experimentation than the rest of the album, the sound is much richer and fuller overall.

"Optimistic" suddenly turns into the totally different "In Limbo", which is almost dreamlike--it feels like two different songs being played at the same time, as the guitar and keyboard don't entirely match up. As a result, the song ends up feeling a bit cluttered, although there are times when it rises out of the chaos with a guitar line, which helps quite a bit. After a while, I also get used to the whole mishmash.

The next track, "Idioteque", is a strange piece of almost dance-like music, with electronic beats and samples from a couple of other electronic pieces, woven together in an excellent way, so that Radiohead makes it their own. The various layers involved sink out and move back in unpredictably, and the melodies added on to the samples are also good.

"Morning Bell" has little besides an electric piano line and an unusual drumbeat, both in 10/8, playing another effective melody that alternates between the conventionally gloomy mood of the album and a more upbeat style, without losing its fluidity. This piece has the droning feeling that accompanies most of the record, but it occasionally falls away from its central note in a triumphant way, accompanied by the unnerving lyric "cut the kids in half".

The album's closer, "Motion Picture Soundtrack", is a slow, ambling progression powered by an organ lead, and eventually peppered with ethereal harp glissandos and voices underneath Thom Yorke's somewhat less ethereal one. This turns out to be one of the scariest tracks on the album, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that it is extremely minimal--the glissandos just seem very wrong.

But wait! Just as you're wondering whether you're going to get any sleep that night, one last hidden track comes in, consisting just of a single swell that sounds like the combination of an orchestra tuning up and a choir of angels descending. It's an amazing sound, and a fittingly unnerving actual ending to a highly unnerving album.

This is overall a very good album, and it does best when it's trying to either be atmospheric or creepy (or ideally, both--see "Motion Picture Soundtrack") Thom Yorke's voice isn't really the most pleasant to listen to, and as mentioned above the drive is sometimes lacking, but these are minor quibbles about a mysterious and sometimes disturbing album, that manages to craft amazing ambient soundscapes with usually very minimal instrumentation. Highlights include "Everything In Its Right Place", "How To Disappear Completely", and "Optimistic".

I love the time I spend listening to music and think of it as a pleasurable experience. But if what the music began to resemble a monstrous creature that, having somehow leapt out of the stereo, started creeping towards me slowly but surely? And if it was yet so enchanting that it paralyzed me to watch, frozen with fright, as it did so?

That weird description would aptly sum up my reaction to the first time I 'properly' heard Everything In Its Right Place. The first time I actually heard it, it sounded too unlike what Radiohead I knew and I couldn't penetrate it. When I did, I was, needless to say, mesmerized.

The repeating electronic loops of Everything in Its Right Place more or less sum up what Radiohead achieve with Kid A. It's electronic, but it's still alive, so much so that it's scary. It is just a repeating loop but it's not static; it feels like it's moving, all the time, closer to you. And powerless as you are to resist, you shall be sucked into another world, one of a cloning experiment gone horribly wrong.

What's interesting, though, is you don't really need to know much about the concept to enjoy this album. In fact, you may not need to try too hard to understand what on earth is Thom Yorke saying (or singing). I don't. It hardly matters, at least to me. Kid A portrays a powerful and hypnotic mood of the kind that's rarely heard in contemporary music. The kind that has labyrinths of seemingly infinite depth from which emanate strange sounds that you notice for the first time after having listened to the album several times..."oh, did I really miss this before!"

Everything....is hardly the only track that manages to achieve such a mesmerizing effect. How to Disappear Completely is not too far off on the creepiness quotient. I don't know whether I should feel sad for and empathize with Yorke as he sings, "I am not here, this isn't happening" or listen to the ominous sounds in the background and feel afraid. Once again, not a track that exhibits a lot of development in the conventional sense understood and favoured by progheads but its impact is profound.

Morning Bell is a little more conventionally proggy. It changes direction quite a bit and comes the closest to sounding like Pink Floyd of all tracks on this album....and it's still not a whole lot. It's decidedly a far cry from the Radiohead of OK Computer and is often even more effective than the best moments of that album...quite comfortably so.

Which brings me to the most amazing aspect of Kid A. It is one of the most incredible attempts by a rock band to reinvent itself. Very few rock bands have changed their style so drastically with their follow up to a (proclaimed) masterpiece and still retained an intangible something that's recognizable as their trademark. Robert Fripp achieved it by overhauling the line up of musicians. Radiohead did nothing of the sort for Kid A. Every band member found a role for himself in this new style and contributed to creating a radically different experience for the audience. While their execution is still convincing enough to make this drastic change of face work.

There's not a whole lot more to say about what is easily my favourite 21st century rock album. I don't think attempting to describe the tracks any further would make much sense when it comes to this album. Especially because the surprise at discovering that this is indeed Radiohead, the same band that made Bends and OK Computer, is a huge part of the experience. Magnificent masterpiece of modern rock, gets all 5 stars without hesitation.

You know, judging by the massive hit 'Creep', RADIOHEAD were never going to raise any eyebrows within the Prog world. At least, that's what I always thought. Fast forward a few years and the band churns out an eclectic run of songs on an album which did raise eyebrows of music lovers the world over, regardless of genre preference, O.K. Computer. To me, it went down O.K., but that was it. Finally, having acquired the lovely double 10" vinyl package, courtesy of 'Skully'z Records', Bourbon St. New Orleans, and a fine little shop it was, I had to wait for my return to the ole homestead to give it a whirl. What a surprise this album was from the get-go. Surely it sports an 'Indie' vibe, but the clever song-craft and thirst for new sounds saw the band stretching even further out of their comfort zone and trying different things. One can most certainly discern the influence of such Kraut bands as CAN and KRAFTWERK ; it's there in the grooves, the rhythmic patterns and the other-worldly quality of the emotional out- pour of atmospheric sounds. Vocalist Thom Yorke has a soft, uber-cool falsetto voice which serves the songs well, keyboards play a large part in creating their unique blend of accessible stylings with a more personal approach. Had it not been for the lightly techno flavoured 'Idioteque', this would have been a masterpiece, as all other tracks have interesting elements on offer. Of the highest-of-highs, opener 'Everything In It's Right Place' hits the spot instantly, the eerie 'How To Disappear Completely' is out of this world, the instrumental piece 'Treefingers' is reputed to be made up entirely of guitars but sounds like anything but, and there's a superb tune with 'In Limbo'. Absolutely mesmerising. I was surprised that Yorke utilised an old Harmonium (or Pedal Organ) for the final song, 'Motion Picture Soundtrack', which rounds off the precedings with a timeless antiquity. A most excellent album of 4 stars. This is a fine example of what defines the 'Crossover Prog' sub-genre.

4.2 stars.

Hailed by fans and everyday music listeners as the "Dark Side of the Moon" of the 90s, this depressing, yet satisfying album is a fantastic one. This is the epitome of an album that needs to be played in order and straight through, in order to capture the full effect of Thom Yorke's gloomy and dark subconsciousness. Sometimes blisteringly dissonant and mood- dampening, and at other times melodic and inspired, this musical experiment truly expresses the word "progressive" in the truest sense. "Airbag" is a definite highlight, and "Paranoid Android" is my favorite track (actually, tied with "Karma Police" and "Electioneering" for first place). "Paranoid Android" actually uses a 7/8 time signature, for those of you who adore those types of things as I do. Not to mention that the song is structured in multiple keys and tempo changes and sections. It is progressive in the same sense that "Bohemian Rhapsody" (with which "Paranoid Android" is commonly compared to) is a progressive effort.

This album pushes music and tests out what is possible on instruments. Because of that, Radiohead represents something truly progressive, although not prog rock. All in all, a definite worthy album of any progressive rock fan, and fans of music everywhere.

It might have stood out at first for its novel pricing strategy, but In Rainbows is also a strong album in its own right. Taking further Hail to the Thief's rebalancing of the equilibrium between the avant-electronic and mildly proggy indie rock sides of Radiohead's sound, the album feels like a summation of all the musical developments of the preceding decade of the band's existence. There's a fan theory that a secret double concept album can be heard by interweaving the tracks of OK Computer and In Rainbows; whether or not that's the case, I can kind of see why people might think that, because the album seems to show a new willingness to recapture that side of the band's sound which had been kept firmly on a leash for the albums from Kid A to Hail.

In common with many other old style prog fans, I dare say, I lapped up the incredible passion and sheer progressive rock beauty of OK Computer, this on the back of The Bends, itself a loud shout to the world announcing the arrival of an intelligent rock band for the post- rock generation. I thought that Pink Floyd themselves had been reincarnated, and that the future of expansive, conceptual, spacey, progressive rock was utterly assured.

So, with the arrival of the new millennium, this came as a bit of a shock, to say the least. The dancy, trippy, Yorke wailing experimentation of the opening track, Everything In Its Right Place, the title track itself, sounding for all the world like Marvin The Paranoid Android on mogadon, came as a huge, well, it was difficult to describe.

Of course, all of this was done perfectly deliberately. I don't subscribe to the view that the band were frightened of being labelled the new prog alumini. I think it was all a little bit more subtle than that. Yorke, especially, wanted a change, and wanted the band to break the limits, and he found an especially willing accomplice in Jonny Greenwood.

This is an album which splits opinion more than most on this site. Ranging from genius to diabolical, I actually find it somewhere nearer the former. As with its predecessor, there are moments of utter, lovely, beauty on this album. The musicianship is awesome, and Colin Greenwood, especially, absolutely shines on bass, heavy and pounding virtually throughout, and on no track more than the entrancing Morning Bell, which has a bass led melody at the heart of more experimental goings-on elsewhere.

Of course, though, the main focus was on those strange vocals, and the almost complete absence of the younger Greenwood guitar that had so impressed us on the previous two works. I found Yorke's vocals, for perhaps the final time, to be fascinating here, before the new style started to grate on later works. I began, eventually, to really appreciate the almost psychotic experimentation and effects on tracks such as The National Anthem, which does, of course, bare more than a passing resemblance to early Floyd works such as Atom Heart Mother.

Because, at its heart, this is a band right at the top of its game pushing themselves, and refusing to be pigeon holed or stereotyped. Given that this could almost be a definition of classic prog artists such as Hamill/VDGG (and there is more than a little bit of that going on here), Crimson, and Floyd themselves, this is deservedly, I believe, a classic modern progressive rock album.

Of the more experimental tracks, my favourite is Idioteque, at first glance an electronic dance beat led track for the masses, but, again, repeated listens reveal it to be far more interesting and subtle than just that. The beat is hypnotic, and I swear that this is by far the finest vocal performance by Yorke ever. Yep, that's right, even more so than any of the more prog songs on other albums, because the sheer emotion of these vocals, and the exceptionally dark and cold portrayal of a relationship breakdown are utterly incredible. Not all dance influenced electronica is bad. On its own, I regard this track as a masterpiece.

It does settle down in places to something approaching recognisable. The incredibly mournful, and sadly stunning, How To Disappear Completely, is perhaps the best example. That it sounds most like tracks from the predecessor album is, I would venture to suggest, a good illustration of this reviewer's personal tastes, but those guitar bursts, combined with a delicate rhythm section, symphonic strings, and depressed vocals and wails are a joy to listen to. It is one of the finest tracks they have ever recorded, and is starkly magical. Optimistic is one of those relatively straightforward guitar led tracks that all would later hail as a "return to classic Radiohead" in later years, but, even here, the sonic effects, at times, take over and take the track to something altogether different.

This will not be an album to everyone's tastes, that is for sure. I do, however, regard it as the last great Radiohead album. It took an age for me to really appreciate it, but once I did, the time taken was worth it. In my opinion, it is the last album by the band to feature a collection of great songs, rather than just one or two gems amongst a pile of caterwauling dross.

If we had such a rating, 4.5 stars, rounded down to four, because, as excellent as it is, I do not think it is as strong as the previous two, which were both masterpieces.

It is, though, excellent, and highly recommended. Don't be afraid of the experimentation. It works here, and if you are a sucker for the harp, then Motion Picture Soundtrack makes it worth the purchase alone!

Hail to the Thief was seen by some as a creative retreat to safer ground by Radiohead, and hailed by others as a return to guitar rock. Neither is really the case. Guitar rock had never left the Radiohead sound; even in the midst of the arid electronic wilderness of Kid A and Amnesiac, both albums included at least one really tight indie rock number. What is the case is that, having successfully branched out into the electronic arena, Radiohead eventually decided to bring the guitar rock aspect of their sound back to the fore on this album - but they blend it so expertly with electronic departures but this is clearly an evolution, not a regression.

I've always liked OK Computer, but I don't think it's Radiohead's best album. It was a bit too overrated at the time of release and I'd have to agree with some other reiviews here, it does get self-indugent at times. It lacks warmth and isn't as sentimental as "The Bends". Having said that, it does have some extraordinary moments as well. "Subterranean Homesick Alien", "Let Down" and "No Surprises" are personal favourites and have a lot of emotion in them. These lads have a lot of talent and I saw them put it to use when they toured with this album. There's a lot of enjoyable music here, but the band cannot be compared to Pink Floyd. Three and a half stars.