THE ERASER

I'm apparently in the minority, but I believe THE ERASER to be superior to the fine but over- rated IN RAINBOWS CD. (Apparently Kanye West also believes this, according to reports.) Yorke was working on both simultaneously, and for me his heart was clearly in this, his first solo album. I think that time will treat this album much kinder than RAINBOWS (which contains one masterpiece, "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi," but is otherwise not on par with past efforts by Radiohead).

THE ERASER picks up where KID A, AMNESIAC, and HAIL TO THE THIEF left off (although it's more cohesive than HTTT). The opening track "The Eraser" is nearly as compelling a beginning as KID A's "Everything In Its Right Place." The second track, "Analyse," is a grower. (Thom did a stunning solo keyboard version for XFM Radio, which can be found on Youtube, and which sounds remarkably like Cliff Martinez's marvelous score for the 2002 film version of 'Solaris'.) Next track "The Clock" is sonically beautiful, and reminds me a lot of Icelandic electronic band Mum's classic "Smell Memory." (Surely this was an influence on Yorke.) The best song might be "Harrowdown Hill," about David Kelly, a British UN weapons inspector in Iraq who mysteriously died days after testifying to Parliament that the Bush-Blair governments were fabricating evidence about weapons in Iraq. In fact, this album is obviously a passionate and angry album, which lends an immediacy to Thom's voice.

I know most won't agree, but to me these songs are better than anything than on IN RAINBOWS, besides the aforementioned "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi." While IN RAINBOWS found the band retreating from the electronica experiments the band had earlier pioneered, THE ERASER delves further into this realm.

BTW, fans of this album should check out German electronic band Modeselektor's album HAPPY BIRTHDAY, released around the same time, which contains the song "The White Flash" featuring Yorke on vocals. It's another Yorke masterpiece in the same vein as THE ERASER.