Thom Yorke

Considering the blitzkrieg of anticipation and analysis that has come with every Radiohead album post-OK Computer, frontman Thom Yorke has gone about as under the radar as possible with his solo debut, The Eraser. Yorke has spent years at the sort of critical peak that invariably leads contrarians to declare him overrated -- or a lesser light to, say, guitar wizard and gadget master Jonny Greenwood. But when he's left to his own devices, it's possible to feel something quite unexpected, considering Radiohead's success: Is it possible that Yorke will go full circle and become underrated again? Is he already being taken for granted?

He's one of the great vocalists and mood-setters in all of music, and The Eraser finds him retreating into a familiar niche that saves room for some surprise flourishes. The record is dense and melancholy, but also somewhat humble and approachable. Yorke sounds like he's working from DIY seclusion, hunkered down with a computer, a pile of old records, and messy mountains of somber literature.

The Eraser begins with its title track, which itself begins with a foreboding piano that is saved from isolation by the sort of skittering electronic beat that populates much of the album. "Please excuse me but I've got to ask," Yorke begins. "Are you only being nice because you want something?" As usual, he doesn't go long before turning the microscope -- and the venom -- inward. Reading Yorke's lyric sheet often doesn't really convey the point of his lyrics, as his inflections and brittleness can put high drama into throwaway lines, or partial clarity into the ones that seem the most Dadaist. His vocals sometimes outwork the music, as on "The Clock," which has a busy, somewhat unfocused arrangement that distracts from Yorke's beautifully sung warnings about time running out. And the album's middle gets mushy, mainly because of the claustrophobic, largely spoken "Skip Divided." "Black Swan" comes closest to what would typically be considered the Radiohead template, riding a familiarly propulsive guitar riff -- largely an endangered species here -- and tense electronic percussion.

"Harrowdown Hill" is the best piece of The Eraser, the rare Yorke narrative that, though enigmatic, is directly drawn from the headlines (and acknowledged as such). He seems to sing from the perspective of British weapons inspector David Kelly, whose 2003 death was controversially ruled a suicide. But even without the backstory, the song -- another inimitable vocal over a mixture of cold, electronic funk and ethereal gloom -- packs a punch. It's a deeply sympathetic track that explores some critical Yorke themes: shady governments, suffocating paranoia, and plans for escape. - Adam McKibbin, The Red Alert

The Eraser, Thom Yorke's first album away from Radiohead, is intensely focused and steady. It doesn't have the dynamics -- the shifts of mood, tempo, volume -- held by any Radiohead album, and it's predominantly electronic, so it's bound to rankle many of the fans who thought Kid A was too unhinged from rock & roll. It's definitely not the kind of album you put on to get an instant shot of energy, and at the same time, it doesn't contain anything as sullen as "How to Disappear Completely." Since it is so balanced, it might initially seem unwavering, but the details that differentiate the songs become increasingly apparent with each successive listen. Despite a reliance on machine beats and synthetic textures, Yorke's untouched, upfront vocals and relatively straightforward lyrics should be enough to bring back some of the detractors; he would have no trouble taking these songs on the road with a piano and an acoustic guitar. "Black Swan," the standout, comes across as a less guitar-heavy and more subdued version of Amnesiac's "I Might Be Wrong." Peek beneath the surface and you'll see that there's a lot more seething involved: "You have tried your best to please everyone/But it just isn't happening/No, it just isn't happening/And it's f*cked up, f*cked up." The opener, the title track, asks the album's first set of probing questions, including "Are you only being nice because you want something?" Along with the thoroughly sweet "Atoms for Peace," it vies for the album's prettiest-sounding five minutes, elevating into a chorus of hovering sighs as Yorke projects lightly with a matter-of-fact tone, "The more I try to erase you, the more, the more, the more that you appear." On the explicitly political end is "Harrowdown Hill," anchored by a snapping bass riff and percussive accents that skitter and slide back and forth between the left and right channels. Yorke defeatedly states, "You will be dispensed with when you become inconvenient," and asks "Did I fall or was I pushed?" referring to Dr. David Kelly, a whistle-blowing U.N. weapons inspector whose death -- which took place following a sequence of events that led to a testimonial before a parliamentary committee -- was ruled a suicide. It's no shock that the album entails some heavy subject matter and sounds as close to a version of Radiohead minus four of its members as one can imagine. What distinguishes The Eraser from the Radiohead albums, beyond the aspects mentioned above, is its ability to function in the background or as light listening without the requirement of deep concentration. The constant stream of soft, intricately layered sounds, while not without a great deal of tension in most spots, can be very comforting. Yorke's assertion that the album isn't truly a solo release is accurate. Producer Nigel Godrich, whose relationship with Radiohead exceeds a decade, played a major role, contributing arrangements, "extra instruments," and enough influence to guide the album into its tight song-oriented structure. Without him, the well-executed album would've likely sounded a lot closer to the kind of stray-idea patchwork experiment that so many other long-boiling side projects resemble. And, to a somewhat lesser extent, Yorke needed his bandmates as well; some of the sounds were pulled and manipulated from a bank of the band's unused recordings. ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide