While 1998's OK Computer brought Radiohead plenty of plaudits, it still sounded like the work of a band stuck between rock and an art place -- a position they've escaped on this dense, sometimes convoluted set of sonic mind games. Rife with odd structures and enigmatic instrumentation -- guitars are largely relegated to deep background, as are Thom Yorke's vaporous vocals -- Kid A bristles with the manic energy of a band turning itself inside-out in real time, as well as the confidence to forecast the results of those contortions.
Yorke and company don't waste any time on such pleasantries as allowing their audience to settle, as evidenced by the electric piano-driven opener "Everything in its Right Place," which belies its title through Yorke's skittish whispers and a post-jungle rhythm bed designed to dizzy. That sense of dislocation surfaces again and again on the disc, most effectively in the atonal brass section that accompanies "The National Anthem" and the enervating swells that split the hypnotic "How to Disappear Completely."
For the most part, Yorke's vocals are treated like just another instrument; they're subjected to the same stretching, compressing, and alteration that cloak the mix's dominant keyboard tracks. When that veil is lifted, it becomes evident that the singer could use either a big hug or a Paxil prescription, so oppressive are the revelations he looses on "Optimistic" and the mumbling "Morning Bell." Just when more conventional mope-rock self-pity begins to encroach, however, the other instruments invariably cascade over him in a caress that, while not exactly warm, at least provides some companionship.
Precious few breaks pierce the emotional fog that shrouds Kid A. Fewer still are any concessions to short-attention span listeners. It's earnest and textured enough to indicate that Radiohead has decided to take up the "new Pink Floyd" mantle often draped across its collective shoulders, and unwaveringly peculiar enough to indicate a willingness to combine their Dark Side of the Moon and their Ummagumma into one unsettling package.
