Solo albums are risky business. Might be magnificent, may be mindless matter. <\/p>\n
A guy whose help put together between two to five (depending on who you ask) of the greatest albums of the modern age with Radiohead begins at a major disadvantage. Could be career-defining, can be a catastrophe.<\/p>\n
Thom Yorke keeps his genius intact as he stretches droning laptop arrangements over 40 minutes and waxes his trademark whimper across nine tidy tracks. Thom\u2019s been flirting with this record for years, increasing electronic accents on every Radiohead album since OK Computer<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Most of Eraser actually sounds like his band\u2019s most recent Hail To The Thief<\/i>, only without the band (\u201cAnd It Rained All Night\u201d sounds suspiciously similar to \u201cWhere I End And You Begin\u201d minus the energy). The abrupt flow of minimalist pops and clicks accompanied by piano and guitar flourishes has changed little, but Thom\u2019s tunefulness has.<\/p>\n
Though the intro, singing, chorus, intro with variation, outro formula of each composition becomes irritating if you pay too much attention, Yorke also provides some pretty decent hooks like \u201cWe think the same thing at the same time \/ We just can\u2019t do anything about it,\u201d on \u201cHarrowdown Hill\u201d or \u201cHey, hey \/ The devil may\u201d on \u201cSkip Divided.\u201d <\/p>\n
Several of the tracks, particularly the title cut, \u201cBlack Swan\u201d and \u201cAtoms for Peace,\u201d are instantly memorable in the sublime way you could begin humming in the shower and forget where you heard it. <\/p>\n
More strikingly, this may be the first time I\u2019ve ever been able to understand what Yorke is saying without the aid of the CD jacket. I did need to grab the dictionary, though. Who knew that \u201cbitumen\u201d is a mixture of hydrocarbons used in tar and asphalt? I do now. At any rate, the vocal clarity is a major plus.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople get crushed like biscuit crumbs \/ And laid down in the bitumen \/ You have tried your best to please everyone \/ But it just isn’t happening,\u201d is followed by a calm \u201cThis is fucked up, fucked up\u201d chorus that typifies Yorke\u2019s clever imagery and delightfully depressing style on \u201cBlack Swan.\u201d His voice flutters impressively as he sings \u201cI want you to get out \/ And make it work\u201d on the brisk \u201cAtoms For Peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
As with most of Radiohead\u2019s catalog, there\u2019s plenty to explore here, so repeat listens are a must. I\u2019m going to hold back my high ratings for the next Radiohead LP, but Yorke\u2019s experiment is certainly an original and potentially rewarding one. I can\u2019t say I expected anything more or less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":28439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7784],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-39889","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-thom-yorke","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39889"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}