The Eraser : Thom Yorke : Review : Rolling Stone

Many people find Thom Yorke disturbing. And Thom Yorke seems to be one of them. On his excellent surprise solo album, The Eraser, he creeps himself out constantly, muttering about heartbreak amid waves of electronic keyboards. He doesn't have the rest of Radiohead to buoy him up -- it's just a man and his laptop, with hardly any guitar. Yorke comes on as a Lieutenant Columbo of the psyche, rumpled and haggard, who always has just one more question. On The Eraser, he has some particularly barbed ones. "Are you only being nice because you want something?" he asks in the opening title tune. "Be careful how you respond/You might end up in this song." Like the rest of the album, it's intensely beautiful, yet it explores the kind of emotional turmoil that makes the angst of OK Computer or The Bends sound like kid stuff.

Yorke recorded The Eraser with Nigel Godrich and kept it a secret until Radiohead hit the road, so nobody would wonder if they were splitting up. The album could hardly sound more different from the superb new uptempo songs Radiohead are debuting on their current tour. Live, Radiohead are killing crowds with the Velvets-riffing "Arpeggi" and "Bodysnatchers," or the Run-DMC tribute "15 Step," or the trimly rocked-out "Bangers 'n' Mash," which is even cooler than the classic Peter Sellers/Sophia Loren duet of the same name. But The Eraser is full of glitchy electro ballads, in the style of Kid A tracks like "Morning Bell" and "How to Disappear Completely." The structures are tighter than in Radiohead songs, centered on the vocals -- fans hoping for ten-minute ambient dub doodles will be disappointed. Yorke's voice has never sounded so fragile; his melodies have never sounded so mournful. In a word, he sounds alone. And it wears him out.

For the most part, these are sad love songs, maybe even breakup songs. They're pretty straightforward in the lyrics department, detailing a crumbling relationship full of bruises that won't heal. As Yorke puts it in "Black Swan," "You cannot kick-start a dead horse/You just cross yourself and walk away." Usually, when the word "you" comes up in a Radiohead song, it's aimed at some faceless symbol of our sick society. But in knockout tunes like "Atoms for Peace," "The Eraser" and "The Clock," Yorke seems to address an individual, somebody with whom he shares a complex emotional history. There's no percentage trying to read autobiography into Yorke's songs, or anybody else's -- the question isn't whether they're about him, it's whether they're about you. So let's just say he sounds like he knows what he's talking about. You might have to go back to Side Two of David Bowie's Low to hear a guy delve so deep inside the well of synth-pop loneliness.

"And It Rained All Night" is a typical highlight -- burbling synths, eerie percussion clicks, Eighties computer-game bleeps. And Yorke sings it exactly like Mick Jagger, which is weird. "The Eraser" has a broken stop-start piano sample, while Yorke vows, "The more you try to erase me/The more that I appear." "Black Swan" has a growling guitar line and snarling vocals, reminiscent of "I Might Be Wrong." But the peak is "Atoms for Peace," where Matmos-like synth static crackles as Yorke tries to decide whether to save his lover from herself or save her from him. No doubt these would have made excellent Radiohead songs. The Eraser is full of moments when you wait for the band to kick in, and it doesn't happen. It reminds you how much Radiohead thrive on their sense of collective creation -- even at their most downbeat, their camaraderie gives off a life-affirming energy. Yet these aren't Radiohead songs, or demos for Radiohead songs. They're something different, something we haven't heard before. Lieutenant Yorke is asking new questions, looking for clues to the same old mystery: how to appear, incompletely.

ROB SHEFFIELD

(Posted: Jun 26, 2006)

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Review 1 of 26

3of 5 Stars

Radiohead’s enigmatic singer has done the seemingly inevitable and released his first solo album. Leaving the complicated instrumental arrangements behind, Yorke has instead created a stripped-back beats-driven debut release. Perhaps as you’d expect, the result is a consistent ensemble of modern paranoid musings.

The Eraser’s charm lies in Yorke’s signature vocal. Early during the production of the album, producer and long-time Radiohead collaborator Nigel Godrich put his foot down. Godrich agreed to work with Yorke in making his debut release, as long as Yorke’s vocal was not butchered with unnecessary effects and reverb. The result is an unusually intimate listening experience.

The album opens with the climatic title track, which slowly evolves from a simple piano sample and minimalist beats, into a chorus of Yorke’s layered vocals. The wall of sound is an excellent introduction to the headspace of the album. It moves easily into the more layered Analyse. Primarily a sullen piano-based track, the song is decorated with percussive flourishes and modest synths.

The Clock is a busy arrangement of beats and more basic synths. Unfortunately, despite some interesting instrumentation early on, the song is lost on me. At the risk of offending Crossfire readers, I have to write it off as musical masturbation. Yorke is the only one getting anything out of it, and to be honest, his whining suggests to me he mightn’t be enjoying it as much as he’d wish. To be fair, the same has often been said of my album reviews so…

Black Swan is the first clear introduction of guitar on The Eraser. Fittingly, it is also the first introduction of some colourful rock and roll language; the chorus matter-of-factly declaring “This is fucked up, fucked up”. Skip Divided melts together curious percussive samples and vocal nonsense. While Yorke’s main vocal relieves the boredom, it is at this point that I begin to check how many songs The Eraser has.

The last few tracks continue the same trend with the exception being Harrowdown Hill. While fundamentally built on the same principles of electronic percussion and flooding synths, the vocals are far more engaging. Closing track Cymbal Rush is made up of analogue beats and more synth/piano harmonising progressions. The album ends with the song stripping back to the bare beats with which the closing track began.

Orthodox Radiohead fans will no doubt defend The Eraser as a creative masterpiece that is beyond my grasp, and they may well be right. That said, orthodox Radiohead fans tend to dress poorly and have little luck with the ladies, so I’m gonna take my chances (joke guys, I'm sure you're all very well adjusted). There are elements of The Eraser that are exciting, beautiful and inspiring. Yorke’s mostly unaffected vocal is a rare delight and is a definite highlight. Unfortunately for me, Yorke’s introspective temperament plays too much of a role in determining the creative path of the album, and the result is a mostly monotonous release.

Tom Whitty

Oct 15, 2007 20:15:09

Review 2 of 26

4of 5 Stars

I bought this album about a week after it came out, just due to that i needed a new radiohead fix. I didn't think this album would hold up to a radiohead record, but it has, and what a glorious hold up it is. The music is very simple yet powerful, and i think this album has some of yorkes best singing yet, especially on skip divided. Me and some kid at school actually got into an argument a while back about who is better between coldplay and radiohead. I knew i was on the winning team with radio, and i even said that the lead singer alone could make a better album by himself than coldplay could together. Thank you mr. yorke for proving me right. P.S. if you dig this album check out the performances of clocks, analyze, and cymbal rush on you tube.

Apr 22, 2007 21:25:27

Review 3 of 26

4of 5 Stars

Many have likened it to Amnesiac, but I honestly can't see the link; Amnesiac was very empty and awkward and this is just so much warmer. Maybe slightly less leftfield and abstract, certainly lyrically. My favourite track is definately 'And It Rained All Night' because it takes more from 'Where I End and You Begin' than 'The Gloaming' (I feel) and adds that delicious lick of darkness with the bass and electronica. Other parts of the album that really stand out are the lush fulsetto melismatic melodies and dreamy drones of 'Atoms for Peace' and the interestingly syncopated sampled piano chords that hop between fourth inversion Am7 and third inversion Bm7 in 'The Eraser' - obscure enough to unsettle you, yet repetitive enough to make sense after a while.
Overall, first impressions are good, which is very good, if you consider the amount of time it took for me to get to know all the other Radiohead stuff. However, I warn you, do not come to this album if you want to hear something completely brand new and un-Kid A, because the only real downside for me is that it sounds like Thom has taken all the songs that never made it into the band and recorded them anyway. Maybe the new group effort is going to sound completely different once more and this is just a case of washing the old habits out of his system; maybe Mr Yorke was finding it hard not having deadlines to fulfil now that they are unsigned and this is the result of his frustration, but despite how much I like the album, it doesn't feel like a Thom Yorke solo... more like something to keep us all happy until album number seven.

Mar 4, 2007 14:25:48

Review 4 of 26

4of 5 Stars

"The Eraser" is one of those albums that seem to have been recorded either in some lake house or a parallel universe, its one of those albums that slowly grow on you, opening with the haunting title track and the follower "Analyze", you quickly feel rather strange but amused. The lunnacy characteristic of Yorke is there all the way down to the standout tracks: "And It rained All night" and "Harrowdown Hill". Worth checking out.

Nov 23, 2006 17:38:58

Review 5 of 26

4of 5 Stars

The thing I find so amazing about Thom Yorke and Radiohead is thier ability to take sounds that should be alienateing and yet they become profoundly personal. Each song on this album left me thinking that I knew a bit more about Mr. Yorke and at the same time forced me to realate his words into my own life. Each time I think I've heard the best there is to be offered from Radiohead or Thom I get the joy of being blown away by them all over again. Bravo.

Nov 11, 2006 02:13:23

Review 6 of 26

3of 5 Stars

Ok, 3.5, really. Its not that I don't like this album; its that I keep waiting for colin, phil, johnny, and ed to jump in. Its beautiful, but its so lonely that its hard to listen to after a while. That last track is spell-binding, though.

Nov 5, 2006 20:49:29

Review 7 of 26

1of 5 Stars

Do you think that if they had better dental care or toilet paper or beaches or whatever these sorts wouldn't whine so much and sound like such wimps doing it? It is the sound of a head ache.

Oct 19, 2006 01:43:14

Review 8 of 26

5of 5 Stars

At first, Thom Yorke's The Eraser may sound like a drowning computer. Hell, after listening once I couldn't even decipher any songs. But I kept the faith; it's the least I could do after the brilliance of Hail to the Thief, Kid A, etc. So, I kept attacking the CD from different angles. Eventually the songs deblur with vital sounds emerging here and there. The melodies dissect themselves upon multiple listens and different noises make themselves known like the ooohs that are hardly there in "Analyse," the increasingly potent strumming guitar in "Black Swan," or the ghostly maracas in "Skip Divided." Keep listening and you'll gradually be hypnotized. I've warned you.

Sep 28, 2006 10:49:49

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