After OK Computer it took Radiohead three years to come out with another album, and as we established Kid A received many varying response in the process (before the consensus of classic would come through in short process). Fans did not have to wait long to see where Radiohead would go from there, as within less than a year would already have another album released. Amnesiac was formed in the same sessions as that previous album, but would instead not just be Kid B, and instead come out with its own identity. This is exemplified again by its front cover, which unlike the expansive, expressive world of its predecessor showed the doodling of a minotaur on a old library book; not just trapped in the maze, but trapped in the pages.

Still, entrapment was also a common theme of Kid A, and it is hard not to see common elements recurring in both albums. Hell, this album has another interpretation of “Morning Bell” that has to have the title of the album next to it so as not to confuse. Which begs the interest question on whether each album functions as its own separate entities, or if they were supposed to be part of a sprawling, double album. In interviews since its release Thom, Ed and others have said has much, saying that it was the original plan, but the band did not know whether they were willing to commit to such a large singular work. As it is, I would say that the two display themselves as singular entities, and Thom Yorke description of Amnesiac as “another take on Kid A” makes artistic sense, but I would be lying if I didn’t say I would love to have seen what this mixture of the two would have been.

As well as continuing to use the cut-up technique for more enigmatic imagery, and exploring themes of paranoia, war and isolation, Amnesiac would also take inspiration from Egyptian  and Greek mythology, specifically themes of reincarnation. That makes sense given that Kid A was an album that seemed to revolve around an apocalyptic event, but that contrast doesn’t mean that Amnesiac does not go down that “muddy river” yet again, and end on a similar note of paranoid solipsism. If this album is a mirror to the one that came before it, then it is a funhouse mirror, one with more pronounced curves and dips. Because although Amnesiac is another fantastic album, one that continues to explore the Krautrock, IDM and jazz influences and take them to a breaking point, I would not describe it as consistent as Kid A. I would, however, say that as a result of pushing emotional and musical depths, its heights are even higher.

It’s introduction, “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushed Tin Box”, has a sound that is as metallic and compact as the aforementioned packaging. Built on what sounds like the loop of a digital synth’s, and built on a variety of samples from voices, small guitar riffs and an ongoing synthesiser riff, the song, the album seems to immediately pick up on those themes of reincarnation (“After years of waiting”) but presenting uncertainty in that return to consciousness “And you realize you’re looking,

Looking in the wrong place”. Like “Kid A” and another track from this album, this uses vocal manipulation for significant emotional effect. It’s use however is more subtle, discrete, hidden by reverb and only revelling its hollowness and humanity when the music slows down and the voice reveals itself, still adjusting to the new world it has found itself in.

There’s no adjusting whatsoever for the next track, “Pyramid Song” which stands as maybe the most emotional vocal performance Thom Yorke has ever given, for me its only competitors are “How to Disappear Completely” and a future track of a similar ilk. Like “How to Disappear Complete”, it has a similarly alien orchestra of strings and ondes Martenot, only this time it backs an utterly beautiful piano melody that bounces to a such a strange cadence that it only further immerses you into the world created. Although influenced by jazz, my favourite explanation for the unique rhythm is that is in in a 18/8 time signature, and the chords of the riff are made up, 3+3+4+3+3, also known as the plan for a pyramid. That is so brilliant it borders on “clever clever”, but a technical exercise this is not, instead an impacting depiction of an after world in which time seems to collapse in on itself, as well as matter and the line between this world and the next. It’s beyond imaginative, punctuated in the second half by Phil’s incredible drumming, said to be inspired by Charles Mingus but ultimately something unique to this song (I don’t know what Charles Mingus song is meant to sound like this). In a way though, deconstructing this world almost tarnishes it; “Pyramid Song” stands as a singularly beautiful tour-de-force.

By contrast, “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” is maybe the singularly most creepy and disturbing composition of Radiohead’s career (forgive me if I keep saying this, but it is true every time). Taking the Roland MC-505 technology to such a breaking point that it literally sounds like the machine is malfunctioning, the loops of instrumentation from the OK Computer sessions results in a cacophonous sound that even a track like “Feral” from The King of Limbs doesn’t match. The creepiness is intensity with another autotuned performance by Thom, pitched to the sound of a child tapped in an uncanny valley (a Kid A, if I might be so bold). I don’t think this piece entirely works; for one thing in an album full of such cryptic and varied lyrics, a continuing description of different kinds of doors just is not on the same level either imaginatively or metaphorically. But like those “trap doors that you can not come back from”, the moment I put this song on I am physically unable to switch it off. It’s like I’m am also being looped in its musical sequence. 

Either way, the song provides a strange, revolving segue into the next song, with guitars returning again for “You and Whose Army”. A singular guitar mind you, one whose singularity is like a general rallying the troops to battle, and perfectly matches the tone of the character who has taken power and looks set to arrogantly misuse it (“come on if you think you can take us on!”). That charge to power, the one that produces those strange cries of “ghost horses”, is met with the crash of piano, drums and bass all meeting together at the centre to “ride tonight”. Its another powerful track – one used as an incredibly effect motif/opening scene music for the great Villeneuve film Incendies – and unlike the last song seems to offer at least some idea of escape.

That escape imagery continues for the straight up rocker of “I Might Be Wrong”. Combining a trance or tip-hop like beat with a blues like riff from Jonny that simply churns and loops against it. It is like the waves of the waterfall the character’s are going down, never looking back and escaping whatever they are leaving behind. That reach for salvation seems to be optimised in the final minute, where the beat abruptly changes into a slower, more sombre, more angelic landscape, Thom’s cries as though he has finally reach the designation he wanted. My favourite musical moment from the song the song, though, comes from Colin Greenwood, whose high bass provides what can be described (by me) as the funky edge to the track, the jagged rocks piercing at the edges of the waterfall.

“Knives Out” concludes this trilogy of motion and guitars with a quieter, plucked, clean sound, said to be inspired by The Smiths and sounding nothing like it as a result (maybe if you put a Johnny Marr riff in slow motion). Phil’s drums continue to have a layered, jazz feel, and the bass follows suit against the only inclusion of acoustic guitar on the entire album. The imagery of this song is as though the protagonist of the last song did indeed look back, and in his message of not returning the people behind responded with anger (“So knives out/ Catch the mouse/ Don’t look down/ Shove it in your mouth”). With the multiple illusions to the afterlife throughout this album, this could also be seen as the lashing out of anger and acceptance in response to death, with that central character being “bloated and frozen” and floating away.

In that sense, it makes returning to “Morning Bell” and those cries of “release me” make a lot of sense. “Morning Bell/Amnesiac” is my least preferred of the two version, but I would say that is the one that feels the much  more loose, the change 4/4 giving a natural rhythm to the proceedings. The instrumentation is much more layered as well, with the keyboards and organs having the diminished, chiming bell sounds that make it sound even spookier and horror like.

“Dollars & Cents” is like the ideas of krautrock and of jazz taken to a formative conclusion. Taken from an eleven minute jam, the drums are as evocative as anything from old school Can (though not the great example of there influence, as that would come on the next album), and the arrangement of the guitars wouldn’t sound too out of place if they were replaced with actual orchestral strings. Thom said the lyrics here to be gibberish, but with the references to weapons, walls and people quietening down, it sounds not just of a piece with “You and Whose Army”, but the logical followup to the paranoid mindset of “Paranoid Android”. By the end of this song, however, the speaker doesn’t seem to have kind of those powers left.

Hunting Bears is a song on this album. Now, I’m sure it made sense in the band’s heads to segue “Dollars & Cents” and “Like Spinning Plates” with a guitar instrumental track, but unlike “Treefingers” it truly sounds like filler. This is particularly unforgivable – i.e. forgivable because its Radiohead, but still – when you look at just how many wonderful B-sides came with the Collector’s Edition of Amnesiac, a majority of which could have made it onto the album with more worth than two minutes of sparse guitar. Being charitable, I should say that the guitars remind me very much of the Neil Young soundtrack to Dead Man, which given that movie’s theme of recurrence and water would fit with the themes of this album. But, still, there’s enough stretch on that to drive a bear through.

Similar to “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors”, “Like Spinning Plates” is a song so full of looping electronics that you can’t help but feel caught up, stranded in its wake. That looping of course, comes from the reversed recording of the piece, including Thom Yorke’s voice, which had to be spoken backwards in order to be heard properly, as though like he is being waded through the “muddy river”, and reviving himself after being “cut to shreds”. I’m sure I’m not the only one to make comparisons to David Lynch with this track, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out this was being sung to us by a dancing dwarf as we found ourselves trapped in the Red Room.

The Red Room, though, seems almost quaint compared to the atmosphere in the room for the final song. “Life in a Glasshouse” , like “Motion Picture Soundtrack”, ends on a moment of Yorkian paranoia, isolation, here in a fear of being listened to that only The Conversation has ever matched for me in a piece of art. This final song, if you were to ask me right now, is my current favourite Radiohead song of all time. It sounds both nothing like anything Radiohead have made before or would make since, but at the same time its a song that feels quintessential to the band. The band has certainly taken the techniques of jazz before, but this is a straight up jazz song, so much so that they felt the need to get help from the Humphrey Lyttelton Band for fear they were not getting it right. And thankfully they did, because like “The National Anthem” their jazz accompaniment brings a beautiful chaos to the proceedings, but unlike even that great song the whole song feels almost spontaneous (And that clarinet!). The tension in the verses between the gradual changing of piano chords feels almost unbearable, and when it finally comes to release in that final, almost show tune like coda, it is the culmination of everything in the album that came before it, and is among the most singularly powerful moments of any piece of music in the 21st Century. Oh, and the fact it was used in Children of Men helps its case, too.

Thom Yorke might have described Amnesiac as “an explanation”, but it’s the kind of explanations that only results in more questions. Brilliant questions though, ones that broaden your mind and expand your horizon as you attempt to answer them. Amnesiac is maybe the unsung gem of the whole Radiohead catalogue, overshadowed only its proximity to Kid A, and barring one or two lesser moments meets it as an equal. But now having two equals cancel each other out, Radiohead felt they had trod the ground they could in focusing predominately on the IDM/Jazz/Krautrock combo. For the next album they would return to a guitar oriented sound. But they would bring everything they learned here to it…

What did you think, though?

Radiohead Album Rankings

1. Kid A
2. Amnesiac
3. OK Computer
4. The Bends
5. Pablo Honey

B-Side Corner

This is probably the single best era of Radiohead B-Sides. Some of the stuff left off here is more than album worthy, and others would feel of a piece in a thematically driven EP. Some of the stuff here is better than things on the album, and in fact with some movements Amnesiac could have been number one on my rankings:

• “The Amazing Sounds of Orgy” – Even with the best of B-Sides, unless your name is The Smiths, I can usually understand why it was that it was left out of any commercial studio album. This song, however, is not one of those times. This song is so incredible that I am outstanded that it only made it to a B-Side, and with Radiohead bringing it out for concert performances during The King of Limbs run I think they agree (though there were plenty of B-Sides from that era that should have also been on the album, but more on that soon). This song seems inspired by the mishandling of the banking system (oh what a quaint thought in 2001. Wait seven years pal), but it has an element of dark, menacing sexuality to it that sounds like it would play to a sex scene with thunder and lightning flashing in the background. That is much in part due to Phil’s tremendous, thundering drum work, as well as swaggering muted guitar and squealing electronics. This could have easily replaced two minutes of sparse guitar notes.
• “Trans-Atlantic Draw” – This sounds like the band trying to recreate their old sound on Pablo Honey and failing miserably, and I mean that in the best possible way. Will the guitars and Thom’s snarling vocals seeing the band at maybe their most post-punk, mid way through the song it is almost as though they remembered they were in the studio for Amnesiac, and instead move to a soothing, watery vocal collage. The first verse seems to be about fame. The second seems to be about death. Are they one in the same?
• “Fast-Track” – There were some trip-hop influences throughout the last three albums, but here Radiohead really get their Portishead on. Weird drum samples, the echoing guitars clashing with the spluttering guitars and the vocals coming out like verbal ticks. What is he even saying? Jove? Jump? I don’t know, but I recommend I want to slow down.
• “Kinetic” – Oh, so we’re not stopping with the speed then? The lyrics seem to want to do so, telling the “lazy” recipient to keep on moving from those who want to manipulate them, again underneath a vocal collage, some crazy drum work and rumbling synth bass. Isn’t it weird, after all the hatred of cars, that he makes a song with the explicit message to keep on moving behind the wheel?
• “Worry Wort” – Beyond everything else, I just love how carefree this song sounds. Compared to many songs on this album, with the “it’s such a beautiful day” mantra it feels genuinely relaxing. The MIDI electronics use specific sounds that I would expect from EDM songs today, and the trance like beat helps to make you stop “dwelling on/ what might have been”. This sounds like genuine therapy for Thom Yorke. And it feels all the sweeter for it.
• “Fog” – Continuing on that beautiful feel from “Worry Wort”, speaking lyrics from the point of view of a childlike innocence. Even the cacophonous feel of the guitars in the second half of the song do not quell the elegant of the singular synth notes and tambourine. In fact, the clash between the two actually creates a sense of harmony. There’s also a version called “Fog (again)” that switches it to a piano ballad, but this is my preferred listen.
• “Cuttooth” – A amazing piano led track, with the swirling drums and bouncing bass that is that classic clash between an optimistic and pessimistic sound. With the line “I will leave the wallpaper life”, it is completely in line with the paranoia that can to define a lot of Radiohead content, yet “I’ll find another skin to wear” sounds like a kind of perverse, happy ending, a renewal and resurrection like many of the songs in Amnesiac. In fact, if it wasn’t for “Amazing Sound of Orgy”, I’d say this whole B-Side collection could be an EP of catharsis for the entire Kid A sessions.