THE ERASER

To be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of Radiohead. I like some of their songs, but overall I am kinda mixed on the whole band. However, recently I have been really enjoying the solo discography of the band's lead vocalist, Thom Yorke. Therefore, I have decided to review his first solo project of The Eraser.

Unlike Radiohead's more experimental electronic efforts of stuff like Kid A, Amnesiac, and The King Of Limbs which hold more of the band's early alt rock ideologies, what Thom shows on The Eraser goes further on a focus of a pop sound, with catchy and hooky songs. However, this is probably one of the least commercial records Thom has made. Many of these songs showcase a very fine-tuned experimental quality that Thom clearly has mastered as a frontman, and it makes songs like Skip Divided and Cymbal Rush, while still clearly pop in direction and sound, have a very strange and disconnected sound that I feel works massively in Thom's favor.

Furthermore, I think this is Thom's best singing in his entire career. He is so clear and strangely vibrant on this release. What I really like about his voice here is how it fits nicely within the music being played here. His phonetics and his range really does allow this music to shine the brightest in its melancholy fortitude. I feel like without his voice, this'd be a neat, but not quite superb album, but his voice does add the right amount of details within the music that I end up really loving this.

I guess the one thing I do not really like about this album is that I never felt quite in-tuned to it unlike other releases Thom Yorke made. This is more of a personal thing, but I can never quite put my finger on why I never quite was moved by this unlike, say, ANIMA. I do groove along to these songs, but I can always tell this is Thom's first solo project, and thus doesn't quite hold the maturity, and ultimately musical finesse that his later releases give me. Still a very great album, but one I am not quite in balance to yet.

If you love Radiohead, then this album is practically for you. It holds many of Thom's most experimental, but still rather pop driven songs that can definitely be for a good listen. If you also like more glitch pop, IDM, trip hop music like Bjork, Aphex Twin, and Massive Attack then you'd also really like this album. It is a very nicely made album, and one that I may pop in a few times.