The Eraser

With all the weirdness that’s been emanating from Radiohead albums over the last few years, who would have thought that frontman Thom Yorke would need a solo record to satisfy his muse? The straightforward anthemic choruses of their first three albums seem consigned forever to the dustbin of musical history as Yorke and his fellow Radiohead stalwarts prefer to indulge their more experimental side. The Eraser goes a step further than Kid A, Amnesiac or Hail To The Thief, eschewing guitars altogether (apart from the odd sample) in favour of electronica and all manner of digital thomfoolery.
Nor is this the easy-listening, gentle electronica of Fourtet or even David Kitt. While some of Yorke’s lyrical melodies are extremely beautiful and easy on the ear, rhythmically they’re conjoined by the kind of insistent, almost claustrophobic beats that take the songs twisting and lurching into altogether darker terrain - things that go bleep in the night. Indeed, so industrial is the digital maelstrom during the almost drum ‘n’ bass assault of ‘And It Rained All Night’ that while listening to it in the car, I passed by a construction site and had trouble figuring out which noises were environmental.
While Yorke’s voice may be more intelligible here than on his band’s recent output, it doesn’t necessarily follow that his meaning is apparent. A certified obscurantrist, this man has become an expert at couching his true feelings behind vague, opaque references, albeit delivered with a glut of emotion. One thing is certainly clear however: this is not a shiny happy summer album, with ‘Harrowdown Hill’ apparently written about British Ministry of Defense official David Kelly who committed suicide there. Conversely, sometimes Yorke’s thoughts are as simple and clear as a child’s, the gloriously upkempt refrain of ‘Black Swan’, with its constant reminder that, “This is fucked up” being a perfect example. This is, after all, a world where “people get crushed like bicuit crumbs”.
Yorke’s still capable of penning the most deliciously satisfying lines when the mood takes him, perfect soundbytes for the e-generation. The stunning ‘Atoms For Peace’ alone has more lyrical pearls than most artists’ ‘Best Of’s: “No more going to the dark side with your flying saucer eyes”; “No more talk about the old days, it’s time for something great”; “Peel all of your layers off, I want to eat your artichoke heart”.
The Eraser isn’t an immediate album by any stretch of the imagination. This listener had to really work at the paradoxical nature of its harrowing lyrics and impersonal, computerised and often discordant rhythms and melodies before they started to make sense, but ultimately it proves worth the effort. Plus, there’s always the chance that this will get all the experimentation out of Yorke’s system and that the new Radiohead album is going to be a balls-out rocker.