Radiohead – Amnesiac

This second helping from the sessions that produced the preceding Kid A will probably strike close listeners as a bit more structured, though it’ll be difficult to determine whether that’s simply because the peregrinations of the last album have prepared them for the trips to the outer limits taken here. Those expecting a U2-like return to tuneful, anthemic guitar-rock will have their hopes dashed upon a rock of colourful electronic experimentation and moody, studio-enhanced madness. The piano-based Pyramid Song and the Martian-gospel-choir ballad You and Whose Army? might placate verse-chorus-verse traditionalists slightly, but the sampler-in-a-trash-compactor Pulk / Pull Revolving Doors and the pointillistic ambience of Hunting Bears attest to Radiohead’s continued nonconformist tendencies. Amnesiac opens with the claustrophobic, synth-bedecked Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box and closes with the dixieland funeral march Life in a Glass House.

2 x Vinyl, 12″, 45 RPM, Album, Reissue