RADIOHEAD – “Pull/pulk Revolving Doors”
The bass is a black hole and Thom Yorke’s voice is stretched to a ribbon around it: there’s a factory thump and suddenly and often the song decompresses into garbled lift-music heaven. It is considerably further out than Kid A ever went, and it makes Kid A sound difficult. Not difficult as in hard to listen to, but wilful difficult, surly difficult, clumsy difficult. “Pull/Pulk Revolving Doors”, like Outkast like the Dismemberment Plan like the Neptunes like Missy like Assault like Kid 606 is what you had hoped pop music would sound like in 2001. And I say pop music because the giddy thrill I got in my chest listening to this is the surprising thrill of pop music in ambush mode – somewhere deep in this sound is a band rediscovering pop structure at the same time as they discover how to crush it into marvellous noise. (Every song I’ve heard from Amnesiac has hooks).
My opinion of other Radiohead records is unchanged. Some are OK, some aren’t, some are awful. This, though, is excellent. I’m going to listen to it again to check. Sorry faithful readers. It’s still excellent. I wonder what the reviews will be like. Radiohead have been called the world’s best alternative band for five or six years straight – it would be terribly ironic if that all stopped just when it might be coming true.