| records |
Expectations have been running high for the release of this album and suddenly after the announcement of the track listing and a few mixed reviews in the press; the heat has died down somewhat. I'm guessing that the proliferation of live (and now) album tracks on the internet has changed peoples expectations, no longer will we rely on hearsay and music press preview/reviews to fuel our excitement at the latest big release, why would we when we can download the tunes weeks in advance on Napster? Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is the source of endless, pointless debate. Times have changed... It'll be interesting to see what happens with the next few big name album releases, U2, REM etc: Are we all getting spoiled? Is the fun going out of record buying? If we are, then this album is most definitely the soundtrack to our losses, it's a much different Radiohead album than we are used to, first up it's much less ROCK, than the others, the more 'up' tracks tend to grind like Dj Shadow or Unkle, distorted bass winning out over the trademark wrung-dry distorted guitars of the last 3 albums. So what we do get is a lot of impressionistic tracks, ranging from full-on Aphex/Boards Of Canada style electronica ('Kid-A'), to some really affectingly beautiful tunes reminiscent of late-period Talk Talk ('In Limbo') which has one fantastic delayed Fender Rhodes piano riff that makes the entire tune for me. Somewhere in-between are one or two real honkers - 'Idioteque' is a bad home demo and really, really annoys me. There's a difference between bashing out a drum-machine riff, adding squiggly keyboards and writing a decent song and stripping away all the deadwood from a song to leave a refreshing arrangement - which, for-instance, 'Morning Bell' manages to sound like, being a gorgeous mix of muted Rhodes chords and a repeating 5/4 time drum pattern and Thom's lovely vocal melody, it even threatens to rock out for about 7 seconds. The overall feeling is that because most of the tracks are pretty opaque in one way or another, relying heavily on effects treatments and keyboard textures, they leave me mainly with no strong impressions to speak of - this isn't necessarily a bad thing, however. The most traditionally 'Radiohead' sounding song is 'Optimistic', which could have easily fitted onto 'OK Computer', and its appearance after 5 very odd songs almost spoils the atmosphere. Elsewhere, 'How To Disappear Completely' is reminiscent of 'Exit Music' or 'Subterranean Homesick Alien', a gentle acoustic song about being invisible, going through the day hidden from the public. Possibly the most confusing song for me is the last, 'Motion Picture Soundtrack', which is a mixture of pump organ, harp glissandi and mournful vocals and seems not to go anywhere, it just kind-of droops towards the end of the record. So, I guess a lot of people will be rather disappointed with Kid-A. (I bet Parlophone are totally shitting themselves.) But there are worthwhile moments on there, the aforementioned 'In Limbo' is worth the full price alone, 'The National Anthem' and it's breezy, but crazy distorted brass proves they have got some great ideas left and there's talk of another albums worth of material that was left off this album, like the fantastic 'Egyptian Song', so maybe we are going to get the powerful, yet original and involving modern-rock album that a lot of people expected at the beginning of the year. Then again... Santa Dog |