Kid Ass: Chris Karoli takes Amnesiac for a ride

Radiohead
Amnesiac
(EMI)

Brother can you spare a dime? A quarter? Maybe if I was stoned out of my mind, I could find some levity amid the torturous monotony of Radiohead's Amnesiac.

The Floyd/Smiths kettle in which Radiohead cooks their soup boiled over in 1997; we sampled the soggy bits at the bottom on their last record, and now, as if we were starving for their bleating world-weariness, they've offered us the cack stuck to the pot.

It's patently obvious that my initial reproach of their Hawkwind phase (found elsewhere on this site) was a joke. Kid A was at least comprehensible and in places funny; if you like Achtung Baby, you‚ve got no complaints where Kid A is concerned. But the careless compendium of barely-attended sketches unloaded as Amnesiac merits evisceration in the literal sense.

Flip tracks 2 and 3, and the album's sequencing makes for a greyscale mirror of Kid A. It's like a remix of that record using the three most boring instrumental tracks from each song, and – sans the psychedelic mayhem that distracted us from those plodding anthems – Amnesiac goes down like day-old greased tea.

Only "Pyramid Song" and "Life In A Glass House" belie any compositional effort – and that's in mimicking Morrissey (on the latter, which functions as a horns remix of "Margaret On The Guillotine"*) and Marr (on the former, a heady, jazz version of "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore"). But it's not the sweep of these two cuts that impresses. It's the rockist ambling which dominates this album that truly stupefies, from the "Draize Train"-quality B-Side "Knives Out" to the indigestible Pulp Fiction/Oasis combo-platter, "I Might Be Wrong." "Dollars And Cents" and "Like Spinning Plates" only drive home the apathy Radiohead feel toward your ears and their happiness, as the band aimlessly lob incongruous, "big" guitar riffs with a temerity unheard since Bowie's Lodger.

All of this gives way to "Hunting Bears," a track whose very presence tips the scales and makes evident that not only is this record is a joke, Radiohead are in on it. The length of this short instrumental clip indicates that Radiohead knew it wasn't interesting enough to expand upon, and that consequently, you couldn't endure it for much longer than two minutes.

And yes I bought Amnesiac, and so should you, but couple your purchase with something obscure to cut the mundanity. Four Tet's latest should put enough distance between your consumer identity and those of the others in line. The 39-year-old soccer mom behind you hasn't heard of Fridge, so you'll have that over her; the college student ahead of you has on a Tool shirt. You'll do just fine. –Chris Karoli

*Of course I realize Vini Reily wrote it you git, but that doesn't give my analogy quite the same pep, now, does it?

 

All Images from http://www.greenplastic.com/

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