Amnesiac

Reviewed by:
Bill Crandall

Amid the slightly baffled reception that greeted last year’s Kid A, Radiohead’s bratty child that abandoned traditional songs for esoteric sound collages, word leaked out that the arty Oxford lads had recorded enough material for another album. Confused fans hoped that Kid A’s younger sibling might actually wanna rock. Well, call this one Kid B: With affectations like the wind-chimey clangs of “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box” and the squawky Dixieland horns of “Life in a Glasshouse,” Amnesiac is not exactly ready to crank up your block party. Tracks such as “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors,” on which Thom Yorke’s helium vocals battle with industrial-strength percussion loops, veer hard toward the abstract—but actually sound better than this description would suggest. Other spaced oddities don’t fare as well, like the instrumental “Hunting Bears,” which might as well be a bootleg of Yes tuning their instruments, and “Like Spinning Plates,” which, despite its title, is more like a CD skipping on a helicopter blade. But if you’re willing to take a chance on another Radiohead sonic expedition, you’ll find it a mostly rewarding tour.