The Greatest Albums of 2006

#3 - Thom Yorke's The Eraser

The assumption that Thom Yorke would one day write a solo album had pervaded his career like a mystical gypsy prophecy. Sure, you could predict any of the other talents in Radiohead where just as likely to produce their own material, free from the towering creativity of their band mates (and indeed some have). But Yorke’s was the solo everyone wanted to hear. It was the solo everyone knew they would hear. Amazingly, it was also the solo you could see coming from a mile away, what with Nigel Godrich’s production, Stanley Donwood’s artwork and its downplayed electronic beats (no surprises, please).
And yet, there is a sense of nakedness that helps this album stand above the expected. Whereas Yorke’s work on Radiohead hides behind a shroud of politik, self-speak and indecipherable singing slash wailing, herein he has taken the chance of letting his lyrics be discernible, of telling us about himself and not just the impending doom (although he does touch quite a bit on that). And while some of the album’s lyrics range from poetic to clunky, one element that is never off its game is Yorke’s vocals. With The Eraser he takes chances that he’d never taken before. He stretches his voice out to places it hasn’t been, creating new sounds and new melodies. That, to me, is the main attraction of this album. I am comforted to feel that my personal rock hero still has abilities that he hasn’t yet revealed.
In fact, this should be comforting to the music scene at large. While Radiohead has dispatched massive sea changes in their career, Yorke has remained predictably the same. His paranoia has never died. His disgust remains unshaken. And that’s the thing: can he do anything new?

Yes, and no.

His vocals are awakening places he’s never been, but his lyrics struggle confront something besides the global dilemma (he has to touch upon the me/you dilemma). Songs like Atoms for Peace and Skip Divided try amiably to convey this, but their power pales in comparison to subjects Yorke is truly fascinated by. He reserves his real passion for Harrowdown Hill.
Being an actual place in Oxfordshire, Harrowdown Hill was the site where Dr. David Kelly’s body was found (Kelly, for the uninitiated, called into question the British Government’s participation in the Invasion of Iraq). Culling upon a spooky atmosphere with a throbbing baseline, Yorke trudges up questions and emotions that are both touching and frightening. While the song does criticize the government, it also has Yorke attempting to empathize with the dead party.

Clearly, this is where his mind rests for most of the album.

Godrich and Donwood follow his lead, with Godrich creating a sparse, yet poppy landscape for Yorke’s voice to play in. Meanwhile, Donwood lays out some of his finest art yet…an encompassing woodcarving of a man trying to hold back the sea and every last drop of hell ready to be unleashed on mankind. One is liable to think that inconsequential figure to be Yorke.

Listen to modern radio after this superlative and you’ll come to the conclusion that it might as well be.

That little spastic man with the crazy eye. Does he hunch into the corner of a dark room, banging his head against the wall, scribbling lyrics while listening to the sound of rain pattering against the window layering over the scratching of rats' claws against the walls? I'm sure myriads of fans have such dark, romantic visions of Yorke's writing process. Perhaps they're accurate. He just may be the Edgar Allan Poe of music.

Upon first listenings I couldn't think of The Eraser as much more than Kid A, minus the rest of the band. The rest of the band's creative input "erased" out. But it's not. Where Radiohead output the equivalent of a novel, Yorke writes the brilliant short story on the side. Is the novel greater than the short story by its size, or weight? Surely not, as a novel can be bloated, belching out the excesses of broken-down waste (not saying that is what Radiohead is).

Sure, The Eraser cannot escape familiarities with Radiohead. After all, Yorke is "the voice" of the band. But this album does not stand below the work of Radiohead, but next to it, at someplace on its own. Boom-clack-booms, electro-sounds and keys flow through the aorta of the album, with sparse, but fitting guitar. There's also some very interesting bass work on some songs by Nigel himself, especially Black Swan and Harrowdown Hill. The latter featuring dark and brooding slap.

Along with Brock, I too noticed Yorke stretching the vocals, most notably on tracks six through eight. In fact they are my favorite tracks to listen to, and I love that they are all in a row. I'm taken aback by Yorke's tortured croon of "I...I can never reach you" on And It Rained All Night. Perhaps he's referring to those who "don't understand Radiohead," which, inevitably means...Yorke.