Radiohead : Kid A

Poor Radiohead. First they can't escape the dopey yet totally addictive "Creep" from their first album, Pablo Honey. Then, in 1998, they shock the world by following up the crowdpleasing (but ultimately collegefodder) The Bends with OK Computer, the album that lands them the title "The Best Band in the World" by rock critics and knuckleheads alike. Seemingly plagued by the onslaught of MTV videos, screaming fans, and impossible expectations for their fourth album, Radiohead has quite a bit to say about the trials and tribulations of being the Next Great Thing. (See the tour documentary "Meeting People is Easy" to see Thom York and company at their most gloomy and isolated by their success.) So what does Radiohead do? The band comes up with Kid A, a mostly quiet and incredibly layered collection of songs that ring of — guess what? — an echoing loneliness and despair that will surely confuse the frat boys and investment bankers that bought, and loved, OK Computer. With the exception of the vaguely radiofriendly "Optimistic," Radiohead shuns the stadium rocking riffs of OK Computer's "Electioneering" or "Airbag." Instead, Kid A contains softer music that combines lovely melodies with atonal sonic blips and beeps, including some that even that nearly border on (gasp!) jazz. The album begins with the sound of Thom Yorke's voice stuttering like a carelessly scratched CD on "Everything in it's Right Place," which is jarringly beautiful yet wonderfully disjointed. We hear Yorke's plaintive wail of "everything... everything..." enmeshed with waves of sonic wind tunnels, stuttering lyrics and a creepy vibraphone. Title track "Kid A" evokes brings the image of a child's room on a dark rainy afternoon, complete with a music box and an ominously garbled voice — like a sad, echoing reminder of how lonely we all really are. These are not songs you can rock out to in your car, or even hum along to as you're walking down the street. The way they evoke feeling is like wrenching blood from an unwilling stone. This is however, not always a good thing. Reminiscent of the frenetic jazz club scenes in David Lynch's "Lost Highway," "The National Anthem" mixes a menacing bass line with frighteningly unpleasant Ornette Colemanesque horns. It's cacophonous without being challenging, as opposed to Kid A's earlier tracks. On the opposite vein, "Treefingers" is instrumental ambient, a pure lake of shimmery sounds, chimes and chirps. It's lovely but somehow empty. The only real nod we get to the more driven sounds of Radiohead's previous albums is "How to Disappear Completely" where Yorke sings plaintively "I'm not here / This isn't happening" over simple chords. It's the least exciting song on Kid A, and certainly the one that screams "packaged angst" the loudest. Radiohead can inspire feelings of isolation and inner agony like no other band. Who hasn't clutched their head, crying "Yes!" at the agonizing chorus of "Karma Police"? Despite the genuine loveliness of Kid A, the album has far fewer inspirational moments. It's too orchestrated and pleased with its own ingenuity. Perhaps Thom Yorke and the rest of Radiohead is tired of holding out the microphone at their concerts, listening to their audiences shriek back the choruses to their catchiest songs. While no one would call OK Computer subtle in its sound or lyrics, it is a superior and certainly more organic album. But no other band captures the vacuum of modern life like Radiohead, and Kid A wants you to ache in all the right places at all the right times. But despite all its moments of exquisite beauty and texture, Kid A's studioformulated sound doesn't quite make it from your speakers to that icy place under your skin.