Radiohead
Amnesiac

THE REVIEW

… the listener of Kid A had to wait 8 months by their player for those sounds from who knows where to flood back into their ears and continue to hypnotize the biological sensors responsible for processing auditory perceptions.

The Indian drums lead us to think for a moment that perhaps Kid A has grown and changed. But we're mistaken. The icy electronics are not long in coming. The strings and guitars of Johnny, and Thom's processed voice immediately return to recreate that sonic pathos we missed so much and sought endlessly in a worn-out 'Kid A'. We are soon “squeezed like sardines in a can of sounds”.
This 'Amnesiac', which as Yorke says is named “after those things you forget... and then remember again”, is more rough, more immediate, and above all more heterogeneous in its compositions. Just wait for “Pyramid Song”, the second track, to hear Thom's clear voice in one of his best vocal performances. The dreamy piano recalls an “Everything In Its Right Place” stripped of its electronics. The second part of the track is moving, and the sound of the horns leads us to Paradise on a small rowing boat, with nothing to fear and nothing to doubt.

“Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” is a claustrophobic sequence of noises. Thom's performance is a sort of anti-rap with autotune. The sounds are those of doors capable of changing our lives: there are revolving doors, sliding doors, doors that open by themselves, doors that won't close, and there are trapdoors from which you can never return. The sound of a voice from the forties breaks the obsessive rhythm. This is how “You and whose army” opens; Yorke even searched for old microphones to get a retro sound.
It feels like listening to a radio during the Second World War. The tones are strongly political, and the target seems to be that Tony Blair for whom the artist has such admiration. “Come on, you and whose army?? You and your cronies”. The lack of trust in those who are supposed to represent him is evident. The jazz opening in the finale is splendid and encapsulates all the anger of the rebellion.

In “I Might Be Wrong” electronics are embroidered by an acoustic guitar and bring us back to the future to reflect on a singer in deep existential crisis. The rhythm contrasts reflective singing with restless percussion, emphasizing the artist's state of mind. The track pauses for a moment, but the cure comes from the woman in his life, Rachel Owen, to whom Thom finally says: “let's go down the waterfall, have some fun, it's nothing in the end”.
The central track of the album is a dive into sounds of the past. But “Knives Out” nonetheless maintains that hypnotic progression that characterizes the new works. Total disorientation contrasts with a sinuous wrap of jazzy guitars. The crazy and raw lyrics are sung in a captivating manner with the usual mastery. According to the band, the piece's gestation lasted around a year. We are surprised when the number 7 appears on the player. The morning bell, the same from 'Kid A', begins to chime again, becoming so much more ominous that it seems like the midnight toll of any horror fable.

New recording technologies facilitate endless reinterpretations of the same track. Art seems to have no boundaries. The invective of “Dollar and Cents” against the rulers of the world could not be missing. Thom sings “we are the dollars and cents, the pounds and pennies, and we will destroy your little souls”. This is how we are labeled: the die-hard consumers rebelling against the monsters of globalization. All packaged in a splendid and unusual jazz-orchestral rhythm with an over-the-top vocal performance as always. The cheering teddy bears on the covers of 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac' are the protagonists of “Hunting Bears”, an interlude made of guitar and keyboard that prepares us for an end as unexpected as ever.
That the band was constantly seeking the new is, after all, not news. But thinking of recording a track that represents the reverse reproduction of another piece (I Will) borders on madness. However, it happens that during the banal rewinding of a tape, Yorke detects a hidden melody and can't ignore it. He can’t pretend it's not there. This is “Like Spinning Plates”. You have to be willing to adopt it. The rotating plates are those of show business. The fear is of returning among the market's lions. It’s Yorke's favorite track, probably because of its genesis. In my opinion, the content is also very dear to him.

The conclusion is called “Life In A Glasshouse”. The evocative title refers once more to the vulnerable life of stars. The band is criticized for lashing out against those same multinationals with whom they collaborated to create millions of dollars. The sad tone of the matter is skillfully rendered by the sound of an American band called to accompany a tragicomic event. It strongly evokes those films set in a 1920s America crushed by prohibition and the underworld.

What to say about an album that once again disorients and amazes everyone and everything. The post-Kid A promise of a return to old melodies was not kept. Was it perhaps an “amnesia”?? Well, I, and I don't know how many of you, hope that if these are the things that, as Thom says, “you forget and then remember again”, then they will remain forever clouded in the minds of our beloved Radiohead.