Now a little back story on this project. When Thom Yorke released his solo album The Eraser, which is hugely underrated, he enlisted Flea from Red Hot Chilli Peppers, his producer Nigel Godrich, and Mauro Refosco and Joey Waronker to play live with him on his solo tour. Well according to Thom, the results from the tour were so great that they knew that they wanted to create new music together. So after Radiohead released King of Limbs, Thom Yorke had enough off time to finally get started on this project.
The results are what you would expect. A lot of electronics, great production, and Thom's voice floating around in the mix. And that really is what the album comes to.
With the first listen, I was not very impressed and even said "its pretty forgettable but it might grow on me". I liked some songs and those songs started to come into my head after each listen and I listened to it again and again and again. After the 7th listen or so I felt I was ready to give my complete review of it. Now the first listen reaction was due in part to me thinking I knew what I was expecting, and why I did expect lots of electronics and Thom Yorke's voice floating about in the mix I started to pick up more on the production.
The production on the album, much like all Radiohead albums, by Nigel Godrich have been rich, complex, subtle, and just completely well balanced. But yet again it is an electronic album. The instrumentation is excellent. All the guitar, bass, and drums on the album are well placed and add to the groove of the whole thing.
I am not a big electronic music fan. Much of my knowledge of electronic music does come from Thom Yorke. When I read that Kid A was influenced a lot by Aphex Twin, I quickly become an Aphex Twin. Thom Yorke's collab with Burial and Four Tet made me a Burial fan and made me check out Four Tet. While I do like those artist, I am not all about it but I still like it a ton. With this album, Thom Yorke gets the chance to play DJ and create beats and sounds that are inspired from his favorite electronic music. The whole project is just an artistic freedom to him in every sense of the word. The beats are dancey, simple, catchy, and a perfect vehicle for Thom Yorke to have fun with. Every track on the album is upbeat compared to his moody solo album.
To me the album could have featured more sort of instrumentation from the band themselves, although I feel that the live versions of these song feature more of a band than the album. Another complaint is, surprisingly, Thom Yorke himself. Well now that I think about this is not a complaint. This is why my first initial reaction was so underwhelming. I expected this to be Thom Yorke filled. And it is but this is a different Thom Yorke. Gone is the moody Yorke from The Eraser. Here is a Yorke that is free and does not take the spotlight. He is just there and he is having fun with it, creating something he loves to do. This is a more laid back Yorke which at first may come off as a lazy frontman but the music is not meant to just be Yorke driven. You can feel Thom Yorke wanted this album to be just a full length electronic album but he even jokily said in an interview that "no one would care for it if it was". Which is true. So this might be the reason why Yorke sounds like he is just there and why the vocal performance and lyrics seem just sort of bland and phoned in. But you can't blame Yorke for just want to lay back and just dance his ass off and have fun since he is the frontman of one of the most popular bands in the world, very hard work indeed. And with being a husband and a father, I understand wanting to just kick band and jam.
Still, now that I understand the means of the album, it does seem sort of forgettable in a sense. Its still fun to listen to if I'm in the mood. But maybe I just can't get into a happier Thom Yorke. I feel this music transfers extremely better live and can't wait to see if they tour. Overall all some of the songs are enjoyable, without sounding like it could be a Radiohead song, and some songs are just there but still enjoyable.
The album gets a good 6/10 from me, without any fanboy bump because its Thom Yorke.
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