Saturday, April 3, 2004

The National Anthem

Radiohead's still kicking my ass, after all this. I think they'll kick my ass for the rest of my natural born life. I'm such a die hard fan now, it's crazy. I'll be like, "Yippie ki-yay motherfucker" to everyone else. Just like Bruce Willis was like. Then when it's Die Hard: With a Vengence, I'll be blowin things to shit, still being rocked by Radiohead.

Ah, you people have to go to this thread, so I can further brainwash you to love Radiohead and bow to them and their greatness: Clicky here, yonder traveler, and step into the brain washer.

ACT test tomorrow. I'm gonna whip that thang into shreds, let me tell you.

I took the practice English test, and it was so laughable: I swear I aced it. I was even looking at some questions, going, "Why can't I just say omit this word here? It'd be better for the sentence. You don't need 'however' or 'therefore,' cause it just sounds terrible like that. Normal people don't write like that, and this piece obviously isn't for any style or anything." That practice test was so easy it made me want to do something harder. Ah well.

The math part doesn't look too bad, either. And math makes no sense to me whatsoever.

The ACT is a sad test that isn't even testing your knowledge. It just tests how fast you can fill in answers on a good level. It's not even about intelligence, it's about common sense and using it to overtopple a mean gnarling monster that's a test. Well, monster're are usually just lonesome creatures. I'll give the ACT company, and watch as its hideous hide turns into a lovely ball of fluff for me to rest under.

And if I don't do amazingly this first time around, I can just take it again. And the colleges'll love me like I'm their bastard child (I'm using the literal meaning for bastard here; look it up, loser).

I'll major in Creative Writing. I don't give a fuck if I can't get a job. It'll help me. It won't teach me many things new: but it'll make it easier to be published I hope. Who knows what I'll do though. Teaching Creative Writing sounds like it would be decent, but I dunno about teaching. I know that I could be an editor, though. I'm good at helping people with their writing: getting out annoying inconsistancies. Annoying nuances.

Plus it's just fun. Editing's actually pretty fun.

Anyway, gotta fly. Sleep becomes me. I'd kiss you but I'm in chains. I'd shake em off but they're full of rust. All I can say is I love ya, hopefully that's enough. I'm in too loving of a mood, it's crazy. . .but there's no one to direct the love at. So I'm directing it at a stupid text box. That's pretty funny, I think.

Hah! I leave you with the last thing there is to say: your mom.

Or maybe not.

Uh, I'll end it with: I'm tired. I'm going to bed. I'm going to fuck my bed, too. But who cares about that. Not you. Especially not Elmo or Barney the Dinosaur.

You people are such pervs. Reading this.


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Friday, April 2, 2004

Metal Cold

I'm liked a silenced pistol when he talks to me. I've got a suppressor round my barrel. There's bullets in my chamber waiting to be fired.

Think of the metal pistol lying on the floor, alone, and you get the picture. Imagine the shining metal, a window beside it, the full moon, its light shining off the pistol. And the curtains fluttering. Outside the windows crickets chirp. The sky's a somberly morose black void. The moon's held in the sky by gravity. The moon's full, the craters in it make it look like it's a face. A face I never knew Those curtains, too, they're held tight where they are, like the moon; they're hanging, by tape, since the curtains had broken off from wind. And the pistol's held to the ground by gravity, too. And it's held to the ground but its weight, and by its concealment.

This is a place I live. It's a place of my creation. Of my conception. In my mind.

In my mind, it can all be created better than what's created here. Here, in reality, it's all about reality. Misery. Servility. But in my mind, it's about much more. And it can be whatever I want it to be.

Someone's got to put their hands on my trigger sometime, this gun. When that happens, there'll be the feeling of metal in their hands; cold metal, the feel of my metal reminding them of goosefleshed skin; the feel reminding them of snow, white-walling everything, frothing it all in cold. This gun in their hand will make them shiver. It'll be like it's so cold, their breath is seeable as it's coming out. It'll remind them of what death probably feels like, and how everything's eventual no matter what, for fuck's sake, you do.

Russian Roulette is a fun game, isn't it? I think so. That's what I'd play with them.

Spinning my chamber, I'd be twirling. Ashes ashes, we all fall down, right? Pockets full of posies? I'd spin. There'd be no doubt if I was loaded or not, cause I'm always loaded. Ready to fire.

The pressing of the trigger is the like the pressing of the face to my face, the hand to my hand. The kiss to my kiss, the caress to my caress.

Death is like sex. It's timeless and beautiful, ugly and naughty. Here in my mind it's genderless, it has no face, no meaning, but what it does. Its action. Putting the preconceptions of it all aside, and finding it's whatever it is at the moment. It's not pleasure, satisfaction. It's not release, finding yourself. It's just fucking death; it's just sex. Caressing and lovely, but naughty and ugly all the same.

A gun is a machine. A body is a machine. Our bodies are like guns, our guns are like bodies. Isn't it possible to shoot bullets from the mouth? Bullets that're metal cold tearers of the heart. Metal cold tearers of everything.

I'd shoot him if I could, then I'd shoot myself. And I do. In my mind. It's a mental bullet that's tearing tissue right now. Tissue that doesn't exist, but does. Mind over matter, matter over mind, over matter, over mind. It doesn't matter. It's the same. The bullet which tears is the bullet which rends. Can't feel the pain? Soon it will be felt.

A gun that's got a suppressor on it. That's me. I've got the crafty trigger, the chamber inside to house the bullets, the murdering sentinels. I've got a grip on my handle, an ease of holding, so someone can put me to submission and to work at killing something. I'm a fucking killing machine. I give things life, but I'm a gun. Guns can give lives, but they take them away, too. Guns take em away, cold and breathless, and they never know what hit them.

When someone grabs me, I come to life. In their hands, I'm a Houdini at escape. I slither back and forth. See the gun, and it writhes and moves. Deep inside it's the bullets powering the heart. The bullets thud with life. They're what make me alive. Those death-heads. They're eyes, beady eyes. Metal cold.

The suppressor makes it so when I fire, I can't be heard. It's a marvel of design. One of those "silent but deadly" things. There's nothing more beautiful than silence, let me tell you. When the killing machine can be silent about what it does, that's the best. When you're slowly dying, effaced by it all, and you can't even feel it, that's the best.

Death is a crawling spider on its web. We're all caught in it. Death takes us and wraps us with its fluid. Its web. Like spider-man, death's big and a super hero. As we dangle on his web, covered, almost in a cocoon, we're slowly decayed and turned to mush. Then death, the beautiful thing he is, takes us and sucks out all our inner organs, our entrails. He doesn't eat us whole. The spider doesn't eat us whole. We're left with our flesh, but it slowly goes away with our sad passing. It's such a thing to lament, isn't it?

It slowly, so slowly kills us. That's the way of death. Soon as we're born from the womb, that's when we're wrapped in the web. We lie in there our whole lives. Most don't even see it. They think they're alive, when it's all purposeless. Understanding is purposeless when in the end, the spider kills you. In the end it eats you. Not whole, but eats you. Eats you all the same.

Death is a mechanical enslaver. Think The Matrix, how Neo was in the pods. That's what death's like. Death is life, life is death. We sit in our own pods, connected with our own cords that give us life, to power the machine. The machine is all we sustain, not ourselves. It's all about a machine.

Our bodies themselves are machines. Guns. We can shoot.

Some don't have suppressors. I do. And I don't fire my gun myself, either. I fire it in the most subtle of ways. Ways that're hard to see, and clever. It's the way to cheat death: kill myself so many times before I die that when I die I'm already dead. I can feel it working, too. Working like death, the spider, works on me.

I think the world would be better if I didn't exist. I'm meaningless. I'm just a gun, a gun with bullets in its chamber, ready to implode. To slither on myself, like a snake, and bite myself, inject the venom. Inject it to my veins. I'm already dead as it is. I'm metal cold. Nothing can break me. Nothing can warm me. I'm metal and I'm cold. Metal and fucking cold.

I think what I need to do is go on a voyage to the moon. Von voyage, right? That's right.

The moon's gray as the Earth when you think about it. The Earth's like one big machine, too. It's all like one big machine, sustaining itself with the cooperation of its nanomachines. You know how they say deus ex machina, god comes from the machine? They're right. There's some other, stupid, meaning to the word, but taken literally, it's beautiful. God does come from the machine. God is our bodies. God is the Earth. God is the way everything is. God is a gun. God is a bullet, entering to the head, going into the brain, puncturing in. It's all so vulnerable. So penetrating.

In my mind it's a war. Revolutionary war, with the British on one side, the Americans on the other. I wonder who's gonna win? Don't you? I'm sure you do. Americans win. But not in this war. In this war no one ever wins. In this war there's more than just the British. It's an entire progression of wars. There's World War I, II, there's any war you can think of. Inside my mind it's all battling.

The reds've got their guns, so does the other side. The guns hoisted in the air, berefted. The killing machine.

A fist to the face. Blood running. A barroom fight in my mind. There's a fly buzzing around in there. Fresh blood.

Fresh blood. A shark, in the water, smells it. In the water of my mind. He smells it and it smells good. He comes and jumps out of the water, eating it all, taking it to the ocean with him.

The ocean. Saltwater. A killer whale eats krill, the shark eats the killer whale, the krill are eaten by the killer whale.

Then, the world of my mind. It's changing. The sun turns to a big red giant, expands and sucks the water dry from me. No more water. The shark flops uselessly, suffocates, dies. He couldn't get oxygen from the water.

From his decayed corpse leaps the homo sapiens. They're alive again. Muskets ready. Read to rip a new asshole. Blood, all the blood. The sun's still a red giant. Guns're still firing. I'm still a suppressor, I take in all the noise, but I never pull my own trigger. I don't even have control. They control it all. Not me. They've got control.

The sun's eating their flesh now, as it's becoming a red giant, as it's progressing to its death. It melts them alive, burns their flesh alive. This is in me. This is in me, it's happening. A great fire. The burning. The pain. The great anguish. I can feel it.

The guns fall to the ground as they fall to the ground, the guns're melting to piles of nothing, it's all melting. Being destroyed.

Then the sun's just a white dwarf. The world that I used to know in my mind's gone. I look up from the nothingness to the sky. I'm still a silencer. I'm still a gun. My body's the gun. It's a visceral machine serving its raw purpose. Its purposeless purpose. Survival.

I'm on a new planet now. Never been here. It's blood red here. Rusted. This planet's named from the God of war. God comes from the machine. War is a machine serving the purpose of genocide. Serving the purpose of killing. Maiming. Destroying. It'll all coalesce, all of it. All of it's a machine. I'm a machine that'll deliquesce. I'll decompose to nothing. Nothing that's something, but nothing all the same.

The only winner in the end is death. Death is the winner. How can you even try to win out your machine? Beat the machines? Go beyond the machines? The machines are superhuman and were built for the purpose of keeping us in line, and keeping us in tune to the fact of our fates.

We're just guns. Lying on the ground. The gun's able to be picked up, no doubt there. But the fact is, no one knows how to use the guns. Other than for killing. And fear. There's no other way for them. That's the only way it goes.

I'd like the fighting in my head to stop. I'd like to say every part of me's died. I can't say that though. I never will. The essence of it all is survival. Useless, wasted survival. There's no reason to survive. To die is as good as surviving. Why not just shoot the gun at yourself rather than shoot it in your fear they give you? We're fools. Slaves. We're servile. Ancillary. That's all we are. Ever will be.

I want to see it all end. I wish I could be here for the end. When everything ends. When death finally wins. Because death's going to win one day. What we have here isn't finite, even if the universe in my head's infinite, even if the universe out there's infinite. It's still finite. It still has its ends. Nothing can spiral on forever. When you spiral on, you'll keep going over the same things again, till you're driven insane and destroy it all.

In my head, there's war. There's a coop. There's the systematic killing of six million thoughts, beings. It's all in my head. Nothing's real. It's all a joke. Inane. Funny.

I laugh at it cause it's sad. And I cry with it cause it's hysterical.

Bang. One day it'll all end. Bang, and it'll all end. Big bang, bang of a gun, what's the difference. What's the fucking difference. There isn't anymore. It's all the same to me.

Mars is heaven, but it's mighty lonely. I think one time, I'll just go out and wander in space. A space odyssey maybe. I'll wander around.

I wish you would just die. I wish I would just die.

Well, I'm gonna buy the gun and start the war. Blame it on me.

Blame it on me.
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Thursday, April 1, 2004

Radiohead- My Iron Lung

Faith
You're driving me away
You do it every day

You don't mean it when it hurts like hell

My brain
Says I'm receiving pain
A lack of oxygen
From my life support
My iron lung

We're
Too young to fall asleep
Too cynical to speak
We are losing it
Can't you tell

We scratch
Our eternal itch
Our twentieth centrury bitch

And we are grateful for
Our iron lung

The headshrinkers, they want everything
My uncle bill, my belisha beacon
The headshrinkers, they want everything
My uncle bill, my belisha beacon

Suck
Suck your teenage thumb
Toilet trained and dumb
When the power runs out
We'll just hum

This
This is our new song
Just like the last one
A total waste of time
My iron lung

The headshrinkers, they want everything
My uncle bill, my belisha beacon
The headshrinkers, they want everything
My uncle bill, my belisha beacon

And if you're frightended
You can be frightended
You can be, it's okay

And if you're frightended
You can be frightened
You can be, it's okay

The headshrinkers, they want everything
My uncle bill, my belisha beacon
The headshrinkers, they want everything
My uncle bill, my belisha beacon

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How to Disappear Completely

I wish I had brought my .mp3 player. But still, it is out of batteries.

My confidence is low at the moment, and I feel rather negative about everything, but there's no reason to say anything. It'll likely pass.

That's all I've been doing. Listening to Radiohead--it's all I've been doing lately. Escaping through the music.

Well, there is nothing of note to say. I wonder why I'm even posting this, because I don't see a reason to, really.

I started writing a story last night, but stopped. My dad told me I should sleep and I agreed with him. The story is likely a waste of time and stupid, anyway. Well, that is what I think, perhaps. I see no reason to be unfrank about it though.

When I get home, I'll be listening to my Radiohead, and I'll maybe take a nice nap, since I am tired at the moment.

I have no school tomorrow, but the ACT is Saturday. I need to study, at least a bit, for it.

Well, I hope you, whoever is reading this, is having a good day. I may not be in the best of moods, but I'm doing okay. I feel lightheaded and fading right now, as if everything around me is going on while I sit here and watch it.

Someone at lunch told me I look weird. Well, I feel weird, and I guess what you feel is what you look, sometimes.

I wish there was nothing to worry about but living, or something.

Ah well. Reality never lets up on you.
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Wednesday, March 31, 2004

The Bends, and miscellaneous reviews of all the albums.

Adrains Album Reveiws
How can an album that's basically straightforward melodic alternative rock - have become one of the most influential records of the nineties and beyond? The groups that have arrived in Radiohead's wake have largely taken this as inspiration rather than the more difficult ( and ambitious ) albums that followed. Well, perhaps that's your answer! This wasn't exactly Radioheads own breakthrough into the mainstream but it did build and consolidate what they'd already acheived. Five of the twelve tracks were released as singles here in the UK and each charted higher than the last until 'Street Spirit' finally broke the top ten and became a followup to 'Creep' in commercial terms. Funny in a way as its one of the least 'single' type of songs here. The album opens with 'Planet Telex'. It sounds full, the bass in particular sounds much improved from their debut recordings. Its not actually much of a song as such but does create an atmosphere thats continued in a sense with the title track. A simple, melodic rock song basically, nothing special although the guitar is good. 'High And Dry' is pleasant rather than anything earth shattering but does feature impressive singing from Thom. The first obvious indication Radiohead had improved as songwriters arrives with the sheer beauty of 'Fake Plastic Trees' which may very well tug at your heartstrings a little. 'Nice Dream' and 'Bullet Proof' share a similar feel to this and work equally as well.

Of the rockier songs 'My Iron Lung' is the least commercial and most furious sounding. Johnny Greenwoods guitar does all sorts of things and its a great track. 'Sulk' and 'Black Star' are both intelligent and memorable and the bass of Colin Greenwood continues to play a fuller part in the sound. This may be partly due to John Leckies astute production. We have 'Street Spirit' to close. The opening guitar figure sounds beautiful, the lyrics are staring to move in especially mysterious ways and Thom Yorke sounds better than ever. This one song more than any other here pointed the way forward for the group. It closes a pretty accomplished album thats just a little lacking in enough songs such as 'Street Spirit' to really be a true masterpiece. 8/10
amazon
After the massive success of Pablo Honey--or, more specifically, the single "Creep"--had made them a household name, most had written Radiohead off as one-hit wonders. That they could return with an album as awesome and monumental as The Bends, therefore, must have been particularly unexpected. Not that Pablo Honey is a bad album, but rather, when compared to the epic grandeur of The Bends, it's obvious that the five Oxford-based boys had matured immensely since the release of their debut. "High And Dry", "Just", "Street Spirit", "Fake Plastic Trees": nary a pop song among them, yet it's testament to their greatness that they all were hit singles. And really, it's easy to see why: Thom Yorke's falsetto crying over a wall of acoustic and electric guitars, as lyrics and music blend to create a masterpiece of melancholy beauty. The Bends is one of the most essential albums of the 1990s, and a spectacular indicator of further greatness to come. -
Barnes & Noble
Two years before breaking into America in a big way with the weighty OK COMPUTER, this British quintet forged a quiet triumph with this melancholy medley of melodrama. Propelled by front man Thom Yorke's disconsolate delivery (not to mention his decidedly doomy lyrics), the album zigzags through the listener's consciousness, leaving a lingering unease -- and a desire for more. Yorke is at his best when pondering his own inadequacies, which he does with uncommon honesty on tracks like "Bullet Proof" and "My Iron Lung." His bandmates -- particularly guitarists Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien -- wrap Yorke's tales in deceptively complex melodies that split the difference between prog-rock grandiosity and gloom-pop ennui. A low-key gem.
All Music Guide
Pablo Honey in no way was adequate preparation for its epic, sprawling follow-up, The Bends. Building from the sweeping, three-guitar attack that punctuated the best moments of Pablo Honey, Radiohead create a grand and forceful sound that nevertheless resonates with anguish and despair -- it's cerebral anthemic rock. Occasionally, the album displays its influences, whether it's U2, Pink Floyd, R.E.M. or the Pixies, but Radiohead turn clichés inside out, making each song sound bracingly fresh. Thom Yorke's tortured lyrics give the album a melancholy undercurrent, as does the surging, textured music. But what makes The Bends so remarkable is that it marries such ambitious, and often challenging, instrumental soundscapes to songs that are at their cores hauntingly melodic and accessible. It makes the record compelling upon first listen, but it reveals new details with each listen, and soon it becomes apparent that with The Bends, Radiohead have reinvented anthemic rock.
CDNow
Three guitars, a driving rhythm section and keyboards, all fronted by a whiny English bloke on vocals. That's the Radiohead setup, and believe it or not, it works spectacularly well. Following up on its hit "Creep" from a few years ago, Radiohead's sophomore effort ups the ante, delivering renewed vigor in the form of a happiersounding guitar assault. Shimmering piano notes and echoing drums immediately pull you into the lead-off track "Planet Telex," as the guitars unleash a wall of fuzzenhanced bliss. Vocalist Thom Yorke's delivery is less deadpan and more passionate than before, giving the tracks a sense of smoldering urgency. The title track is a brilliant piece of raging guitar-driven pop, while "Fake Plastic Trees" opts for a subdued acoustic entrance, beginning with subtle nods to John Denver before cascading into an intense swirl of guitar, keyboards and drums. The band specializes in sonic juxtaposition, creating safe, lilting melodies awash in warmness, before drowining them in a wall of blistercrunch guitar and chaotic rhythmic interplay right before your ears. "You Do It To Me" is the group's guitar-infested magnum opus, releasing a barrage of wail, grind and blitz. The Bends, with its intoxicating metallic edginess, bits of slashing psychedelia and calming interludes of acoustic ambience, unveils the perfect power-pop aesthetic.
Dot Music
Radiohead's debut album 'Pablo Honey' was something of a curate's egg - parts of it were superb, others tended to sound like indie filler. With 'Creep' still shackled firmly around their scrawny necks, the singles that preceded this second album suggested a radical change of direction.

The windswept 'Planet Telex' is the first sign that things are different now in Radiohead's world. A spacey, guitar-heavy epic with Thom Yorke sneering over the top - this most definitely ain't average indie anymore. The crashing opening to 'The Bends' proves that, with the monstrous guitars bursting out of the speakers.

The pairing of the ballads 'High And Dry' and 'Fake Plastic Trees' together allows the gentle songs to complement each other. Lyrically, they are polar opposites.

The former satirises a vain and facetious man ("Two jumps in a week/I bet you think that's pretty clever don't you boy") who ultimately is losing what matters ("The best thing that you had has gone away") as the slow, acoustic accompaniment gives way to a harder sound.

Meanwhile, the latter is an attack on consumer culture and the homogenisation of everyday life to the point where even the other character in the song is my "Fake plastic baby". Yorke's lyrical shift from the personal subjects of their debut to the more universal themes here gives the songs more weight, rather than sounding like teenage bedroom traumas.

'Bones' is another transcendental rocker, with Yorke on particularly spiteful form on the chorus. It's excellently contrasted by the lullaby beginning of 'Nice Dream', before that too mutates into a fiery ball of guitars.

'Just' is possessed of another worldweary outlook "You do it to yourself, you do" while 'My Iron Lung' tries to throw the albatross of 'Creep' off the band's shoulders in a mid-section maelstrom of guitars that sounds like Nirvana's 'Heart-Shaped Box'.

However, the real highlight of the second half of the album is 'Bulletproof'. Sounding like a lullaby set in space, its subtlety provides an ethereal volte-face away from the rock bombast. Closing track 'Street Spirit (Fade Out)' is an acoustic ballad, with some spellbinding guitar work laying the foundation for another examination of the pressures of success - "This machinery bearing down on me".

The dull 'Black Star' aside, this is a magnificent collection of songs that flow together as a seamless whole, with some much going on in the details. Pallid indie wannabes? Not any more. Welcome to the first record of the rest of Radiohead's life.
Q
Of all the recent indie-rock second-comings, from Suede to The Stone Roses, the second LP from this Oxford five-piece could prove to be the most significant. Shunned by a fickle music press after releasing their debut Pablo Honey album in February 1993, Radiohead quietly and determindly went about their business, touring non-stop in America and ultimately shifting a stunning one milllion albums worldwide. If the spotlight is bound to be more focused for this release, everything about The Bends is well up to scrutiny. It's a powerful, bruised, majestically desperate record of frighteningly good songs. Singer Thom Yorke's vocal mix of weary angst and strained bewilderment remains bewitching, while the charismatic, shuddering musical storm brewed up by his band is often intoxicating. They haul their emotions across a musical wrack which stretches from the scorched thunder of Just and Planet Telex to the deadly, gripping delicacy of Nice Dream and High And Dry. 4/5
Music Critic
It's amazing - how much a band can grow. Following up what some people thought was just a fluke, a flash in the pan - Radiohead released The Bends. And entered the history books.

Filled with soaring vocals, innovative guitar playing, and boatloads of emotion, The Bends has since been hailed as one of the greatest rock albums of all time. Less experimental than their latter albums, The Bends is easily the most accessible release from Radiohead to date. When it was released in 1995 alternative rock was all the rage - grunge had died and pop had yet to take over. The melodies and inspiration found therein were nowhere else to be heard on pop radio, and far beyond what anyone expected from this "one-hit wonder."

Songs such as "High and Dry" and "Fake Plastic Trees" soon captured the hearts music fans everywhere. People began to realize Radiohead was more than "Creep." Lyrics like "If I could be who you wanted all the time" sung in Yorke's sad yet dominant voice brought people to tears.

The Bends is a musical journey never matched by another band since. Radiohead have since moved on, packing up the guitar crunch for an aural landscape and electronic forays. Still, the album moves you and will continue to move generations.

It represented a certain moment in time. Certain albums capture that moment and hold on to it forever. When you listen to them they take you back. You feel what you felt, you dream what you dreamt.

And words can't describe it.
Rolling Stone
Luck and lyrics that capped the Zeitgeist's ass made Radiohead's "Creep" the summer radio hit of 1993. The song initially stiffed in the band's native England, where the pained introspection of its "I'm a creep/I'm a weirdo" refrain collided with the glib irony of the London Suede and other codifiers of pop taste. Even Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood hated the tune, and his sputtering guitar - a neural misfire signaling the final explosion of singer Thom E. Yorke's constipated synapses - was attempted murder. Nonetheless, "Creep," which buoyed the otherwise unspectacular debut Pablo Honey, bull's-eyed our national inferiority complex and left Radiohead and James the last great U.K. hopes for America's brass ring.

Radiohead's reach may fall short with The Bends, a sonically ambitious album that offers no easy hits. It's a guitar field day, blending acoustic strumming with twitches of fuzzy tremolo and eruptions of amplified paranoia. Only Catherine Wheel's riptide of swollen six strings approximates the crosscurrents of chittering noise that slither through these dozen numbers. And as with Catherine Wheel, Greenwood and co-guitarist Ed O'Brien's devout allegiance to pop steers them clear of the wall of bombast that Sonic Youth perfected and that countless bands have flogged into cliché.

Yet pop allure also trips up The Bends. Yorke is so enamored of singing honeyed melodies that he dilutes the sting of his acid tongue. In "High and Dry," whose title is spun into one of the album's best hooks, Yorke gently sashays through the lines "Drying up in conversation/You will be the one who cannot talk/All your insides fall to pieces/You just sit there wishing you could still make love." There's no hint in his presentation of the poison such abject isolation secretes. Elsewhere, oblique lyrics - an English inclination - erode the power of Yorke's decayed emotions, especially in a song like "Bones," whose big riffs and swaying bass otherwise bellow for airplay.

"Creep" whacked Americans because its message was unfiltered. That's what we've come to expect of our contemporary rock heroes, from Kurt and Courtney to Tori Amos. Which doesn't mean The Bends won't grab that brass ring. But it'll be a difficult stretch. (RS 708) 4/5
Nude as the News
Radiohead catapulted out of its early stages of successful normalcy to create a masterwork of a sophomore album that belongs in the upper echelon of anthemic rock. From the sound of wind blowing inside an amplifier that introduces the record, to the somber fingerpicking of its fade out, The Bends shines with imagination, innovation, and verve.

The pretentious "Planet Telex" opens the album in an uplifting fashion, followed by the majestic, severe title track, which juxtaposes modern imagery ("alone on an aeroplane / fall asleep against the window pane") alongside universal longing ("i wanna live, breathe / i wanna be part of the human race") in the context of a smashing rock hook.

Singles "High and Dry" and "Fake Plastic Trees" bring the album into its meaty middle, displaying Radiohead's sudden mastery of the pop song. Not made of otherworldly chords or wholly unfamiliar melodies, the tunes somehow capture what's good about everyone else's pop singles and present them through a maverick paradigm. Oddly, although both songs made inroads on U.S. rock radio, neither are particularly indicative of the album's true scope.

Indeed, the real heart of The Bends can be found in the two songs at its center: "Just," and "My Iron Lung." The latter provided a real turning point in Radiohead's sound and ambition when it was issued as the lead track of a seven-song EP prior to The Bends' release. Both tracks feature energetic rock hooks with reserved verses and biting choruses. But when they really step up, both travel into overwhelming vortexes of sound, where Ed O'Brien and Jonny Greenwood's careening guitar lines mesh with Thom Yorke's anguished wails to create a pointed epiphany. Deep inside these rockers lie some of the most invigorating moments of '90s music.

Luckily for the listener, the pair is buffered by the meditative ballads "(nice dream)" and "Bullet Proof...I Wish I Was." But The Bends doesn't fade away that easily. "Black Star" and "Sulk" lead the album down its slide with hues of experience and reminiscence blended with soaring hooks, involved guitar interplay, and some of Yorke's most inspiring vocals.

The melancholy endgame of The Bends is its topper. "Street Spirit (fade out)" is the coolest album closer to come along in a long while, with its somber minor-key fingerpicked progression supporting Yorke's exquisitely wistful moan. The song treads a perilous edge of melody before slipping off into a current of strings and floating into the slipstream. The record ends with Yorke intoning one last poignant statement: "IMMersE your soUL in LOVE.
emma
worcester
england

---

Radiohead is one of the best bands of the 1990s. They came along in 1993 with the album ??Pablo Honey?? and the hit single ??Creep??. ??Creep?? was a massive radio and MTV hit. But the rest of the album didn?t take off. The album was okay overall. But it was only a hint of where the band would go in the future. In 1995 Radiohead released The Bends. The album was a consistent, cohesive body of work that fared well with the critics. It wasn?t as much of a smash as ??Pablo Honey??. But it was a far better album that set the stage for further masterworks such as 1997?s ??OK Computer?? and 2001?s ??Amnesiac??.

On ??Pablo Honey??, Radiohead had often been compared to U2. On ??The Bends?? they began to show the influence of The Beatles and Pink Floyd.

I first discovered ??The Bends?? after hearing ??OK Computer??. I bought ??OK Computer?? when it first came out and liked it a lot. In fact I gave it my vote as best album of 1997. In 1999 I purchased ??The Bends?? and it became another album that has rarely left my stereo.

??The Bends?? begins with ??Planet Telex??. The song has an ominous backing. Synths mix well with Johnny Greenwood?s guitar. Yorke sings the rather abstract lyrics that include ??You can push it/But it will not go/You can crush it/But it?s dry as a bone.??

The title track is next and it?s a hard guitar-driven rocker. The lyrics have a sort of out there vibe to them. ??Alone on an aero plane/Falling asleep beside the window pane/My blood will thicken/Baby?s got the bends/And we don?t have any real friends/I?m just lying in a bar with my drip feed on.??

??High And Dry?? is an excellent ballad. It is here where the Beatles influence shows; much like the Floyd influence did on the previous two tracks. Yorke sings ??You?d kill yourself for recognition/You?d kill yourself to never ever stop/You broke another mirror/You?re turning into something you are not/Don?t leave me high/Don?t leave me dry??. Yorke?s voice sounds beautiful on here and the guitar playing is excellent.

??Fake Plastic Trees?? is another great ballad. The lyrics have that sort of Pink Floyd like abstractness to them. ??Her green plastic watering can for her fake Chinese rubber plant??. Yorke again sings in an achingly brilliant tone.

??Bones?? is another rocker. Yorke delivers the lyrics in an angry tone. The lyrics are apparently written from the perspective of a quadriplegic (??Shoulders/wrist/knees and back/Ground to dust/Crawling on all fours??). A great song delivered in a very emotionally affecting way.

??(Nice Dreams)?? is another ballad. The lyrics express a feeling of vulnerability and the use of sleep as a method of escape from the problems of the real world. ??They Love me like I was a brother/They protect me from the world/Nice dreams??. The Floyd influence is apparent here both musically and lyrically.

??Just?? is an angry hard rocker. On here Yorke sings in an angry tone. The lyrics apparently detail a person who is always putting the blame for his/her problems on someone else. ??You do it to yourself/You do and that?s what really hurts??.

??My Iron Lung?? continues in the hard rocking vein of ??Just??. The lyrics are more abstract again. But they also seem particularly angry ??We?re too young to fall asleep/Too cynical to sleep/We are losing it/Can?t you tell??.

??Bullet Proof?? is a slower song that seems to be a sort of commentary on stardom.

?Street Spirit? closes the album. It?s slower and the lyrics are about some sort of control. The themes of the song point to the themes they would explore in depth on Ok Computer.

With ?The Bends? Radiohead delivered one of the classic albums of the 1990s. In fact I would go as far to say that it would be remembered as one of the classics of all time, along with ?Dark Side Of The Moon? and ?Sgt Pepper?. If you don?t own this album yet, head for the nearest record store and pick up a copy now.

---

Radiohead is one of the best bands of the 1990s. They came along in 1993 with the album ??Pablo Honey?? and the hit single ??Creep??. ??Creep?? was a massive radio and MTV hit. But the rest of the album didn?t take off. The album was okay overall. But it was only a hint of where the band would go in the future. In 1995 Radiohead released The Bends. The album was a consistent, cohesive body of work that fared well with the critics. It wasn?t as much of a smash as ??Pablo Honey??. But it was a far better album that set the stage for further masterworks such as 1997?s ??OK Computer?? and 2001?s ??Amnesiac??.

On ??Pablo Honey??, Radiohead had often been compared to U2. On ??The Bends?? they began to show the influence of The Beatles and Pink Floyd.

I first discovered ??The Bends?? after hearing ??OK Computer??. I bought ??OK Computer?? when it first came out and liked it a lot. In fact I gave it my vote as best album of 1997. In 1999 I purchased ??The Bends?? and it became another album that has rarely left my stereo.

??The Bends?? begins with ??Planet Telex??. The song has an ominous backing. Synths mix well with Johnny Greenwood?s guitar. Yorke sings the rather abstract lyrics that include ??You can push it/But it will not go/You can crush it/But it?s dry as a bone.??

The title track is next and it?s a hard guitar-driven rocker. The lyrics have a sort of out there vibe to them. ??Alone on an aero plane/Falling asleep beside the window pane/My blood will thicken/Baby?s got the bends/And we don?t have any real friends/I?m just lying in a bar with my drip feed on.??

??High And Dry?? is an excellent ballad. It is here where the Beatles influence shows; much like the Floyd influence did on the previous two tracks. Yorke sings ??You?d kill yourself for recognition/You?d kill yourself to never ever stop/You broke another mirror/You?re turning into something you are not/Don?t leave me high/Don?t leave me dry??. Yorke?s voice sounds beautiful on here and the guitar playing is excellent.

??Fake Plastic Trees?? is another great ballad. The lyrics have that sort of Pink Floyd like abstractness to them. ??Her green plastic watering can for her fake Chinese rubber plant??. Yorke again sings in an achingly brilliant tone.

??Bones?? is another rocker. Yorke delivers the lyrics in an angry tone. The lyrics are apparently written from the perspective of a quadriplegic (??Shoulders/wrist/knees and back/Ground to dust/Crawling on all fours??). A great song delivered in a very emotionally affecting way.

??(Nice Dreams)?? is another ballad. The lyrics express a feeling of vulnerability and the use of sleep as a method of escape from the problems of the real world. ??They Love me like I was a brother/They protect me from the world/Nice dreams??. The Floyd influence is apparent here both musically and lyrically.

??Just?? is an angry hard rocker. On here Yorke sings in an angry tone. The lyrics apparently detail a person who is always putting the blame for his/her problems on someone else. ??You do it to yourself/You do and that?s what really hurts??.

??My Iron Lung?? continues in the hard rocking vein of ??Just??. The lyrics are more abstract again. But they also seem particularly angry ??We?re too young to fall asleep/Too cynical to sleep/We are losing it/Can?t you tell??.

??Bullet Proof?? is a slower song that seems to be a sort of commentary on stardom.

?Street Spirit? closes the album. It?s slower and the lyrics are about some sort of control. The themes of the song point to the themes they would explore in depth on Ok Computer.

With ?The Bends? Radiohead delivered one of the classic albums of the 1990s. In fact I would go as far to say that it would be remembered as one of the classics of all time, along with ?Dark Side Of The Moon? and ?Sgt Pepper?. If you don?t own this album yet, head for the nearest record store and pick up a copy now.

---

?toilet trained and dumb,
When the power runs out,
We?ll just hum?
- My Iron Lung.

Thus began the Radiohead story. Certainly what kicked-off as a seemingly mediocre and immature yet penultimate debut with Pablo Honey (remember ?Creep??), Radiohead was no one-hit wonder as was anticipated. Their sophomore record ?The Bends? in 1995 established the truly ?Radiohead? genre in alt rock --- addition to media hailing it as ?intelligent music?. Originality is the basis of fact in the record. Beauty is the apex. The futuristic and torturing lyrics carve a haunting and limitless imagery bringing to life war sequences and the ?attitudes? of inanimate things. Thom?s voice is fragile and powerful, a soothing cocktail of clear pitches dissolved in his saliva.

?The bends? was recognized as their prototypical sound (with newer bands like Travis, Coldplay being inspired by them) with heavy layered epics like Just and the title song to vacant soundscapes of Fake Plastic Trees, miles and miles away from down-the-toilet indie and boisterous pop.

?The Bends? their first single from this album, starts with a suspenseful slight murmur for about 8 seconds?I?m still trying to figure out what it is! The song as a whole is an enthusiastic upsurge of Thom?s blatant emotions among the heavily layered tri-guitar attack of Thom, Jon and Ed, a euphemistically expressed angst of a runaway prisoner (they brought in the CIA/the tanks and whole marines to blow me away/ to blow me sky high). I simply love it. Cut in the similar vein as ?Just? and ?Black Star? with the former being a hard ?pastiche? rocker with sandwiched electronic beats and the latter being a painful ballad with genteel climax and a sublime burning conclusion with lyrics complaining of the trysts with destiny.

?Planet Telex? is the radiant opener beginning with a whiff of electronic wind and followed by and acoustic intro of radiating vibes created by the synth. Not much in length but quite promising and impressive.

?High and Dry? is an overall favourite. It is beautiful with mellow, calm lyrics with a chorus that?ll remained glued to the memory. Thom?s juicy vocals skyrocket again to discourage the life of wannabes and fame- seekers who can sell their soul well for it. Maintains a steady pace with a dim saccharine-like feel, but has a dry and cold end.


Sorry, can?t describe ?Fake Plastic Trees? . I?m too inarticulate to explain that because it?s my favourite. Its slow, depressing treading to the climax is sensuous later uplifting itself to utter despair. I love these lines ?She looks like the real thing, she tastes like the real thing , my fake plastic love? --- I haven?t read anything more lovelier than this.
?Bulletproof ? I wish I was? is the mellowest of all tracks with a lightly strummed guitar and retarded pace though it holds not much of importance though it would have served well as a B-side.

?Street Spirit (fade out)? is a slow, painful, vortex of deep emotion and spiraling instrumentation?a substance that won?t fade out. You could break out on this, consider the lyrics ?cracked birds, dead eggs/scream as they fight for life/ I can feel death can see through its beady eyes.? It has one steady pace, which is unlike the other tracks.

?My Iron Lung? one of Radiohead?s popular pieces is a silent killer. Its frightfully torturing lyrics did grate on me at first but know I like it. It is beautiful and commands the real world as it is. With a clear distinctive of Radiohead?s scornful bite, it is the only one of its kinds.

Perhaps the least memorable tracks are ?(Nice Dream)?, ?Sulk? and ?Bones?. ?Nice Dream? is the stuff goodnight kisses are made of as it gives placid satisfaction.
?Sulk? has a sulked bite. Is it complaining about associate contemporaries? Could be. Though it is a bit empty, it?s a magnificent display of Thom?s vocals and sulked lyrics (Sometimes you sulk, sometimes you burn, God rest your soul, when loving comes). ?Bones? is dry and poetically expressed and hard to define. Another recommended B-side by me.

That?s it. Those were the twelve tracks. Sometimes it really surprises me why boy-bands sell more and I?ll tell you the reason for one-such depression many millions suffer from (who else, fans of-course) --- it?s their FANCIFUL LOVE LYRICS. God, rest their soul when the loving comes. (=that?s from Sulk).

Radiohead is relatively unknown in India as sales are mostly of modern pop and classic rock (consider the number of music reviews written in M and you?ll find the same lists of Ten Best Songs everywhere in MS). Their new album ?Hail to the Thief? was released this June. Lucky I was indeed; I got a Radiohead T-shit free from Planet M with the purchase (I was surprised), wondering any fans out here though?

Radiohead are:

Thom Yorke - vocal/piano/guitar
Jon Greenwood - lead guitar/synthesizer/organ/piano/recorder
Colin Greenwood - bass
Ed O?Brien - guitar
Phil Selway - drums


Till then ?

Immerse your soul in love.

---

The space cadet contingent on Mars [ed. Smile for the camera!] must be praying for the safe return of interplanetary heroes Radiohead, who have been gone now for about four years (what that is in Martian time I haven't the faintest). The infiltration process has gone very well, though: you would swear that Radiohead are both British and human. However, the astonishingly lyrical music they have created is definitely not of the Earth.

OK Computer speaks volumes about Radiohead's stay here. Homesick and fighting bouts of paranoia, they temper their anguish with beautiful melodies and jarring turbulence. On "Airbag," when the one who calls himself Thom Yorke states, "I am born again," you get the feeling that he might not like what he has become, and when he sings "God love his children, yeah," you can sense his sarcasm. "Subterranean Homesick Alien" is a slow, flowing sonic support group for other homesick extraterrestrials, with echoed guitar notes that hang like ornaments. "Paranoid Android" has gossamer wings, but will turn like a mongoose and rip your flesh; the guitar riff in the transition and the chanted pre-ending are proof positive that Radiohead are working with the four elements, and not just the three primary colours. "Exit Music" is a breathy piece, with lyrics of forbidden love, threats borne of passion and yet another stellar melody. "Karma Police" speaks of girls with "Hitler hairdos" and relays more threats through the song's lumbering rhythm lines. And "Lucky" is simply fucking lovely.

These aliens known as 'Radiohead' have concocted a masterpiece of intense restraint. Pray they remain on Earth.

---

Review by LarryG
3 stars out of 4

It's certainly not a stretch to call Radiohead the Pink Floyd of our time which I guess makes OK Computer our Dark Side of the Moon. OK Computer is an ambitious, atmospheric record. Generally slow and moody, OK Computer often reaches a kind of trippy transcendence. Paranoid Android slowly unfolds and keeps your attention over more than six minutes. The dreamy epic rises and falls in intensity starting with Yorke quietly asking, The band tries a number of things but the record is unified by Thom Yorke's yearning vocals. Yorke seems to feel his songs so deeply, it can break your heart. Over sadly chiming keyboards on No Surprises, he sings of having "a heart that's full up like a landfill" and being so bruised and tired that he wants a boring, quiet life. Radiohead show they can rock on Electioneering, with Yorke playing a cynical politician who "will stop at nothing" to get elected. It's tempting to wish Yorke could loosen up a little but his intensity is largely what makes Radiohead interesting. The band does show a sense of humor on the bizarre Fitter Happier which has a computer voice reading to himself a list of goals which can help him self actualize.
Review by Nick
3½ stars out of 4

Just one listen to this masterpiece and you will instantly recognise what a leap forward it is from The Bends it is. Where The Bends was derivative and bombastic this is a infintely detailed and breathtakingly vast in its myriad textures. It is a monumental testament to the talents of one of the best bands of the 90's.Dont get me wrong, The Bends is a very, very good album but it just doesn't strike out for its own territory like this does. OK Computer is an incomparable achievment in modern music. It is a torturous listen at times and sometimes leaves you feeling a certain chill in the heart of your very existence but this is just another level at which the album works. It instills a sense of emptiness in you which reverberates the very concept of the album; that of the overbearing dependence of society in technology and computers in turn reducing human contact and communication into automatic and heartless functions.
Review by The Musician
4 stars out of 4

Pros: Guitar work, vocals, subject matter, "Lucky", "Paranoid Android", all music

Cons: May be too depressing

Recommended: Yes

Bottom Line: A must buy. A great band's finest effort, which is probably the best album of the last thirty years, maybe, and I say MAYBE, of all time.

Great Music to Play While: Going to Sleep

Everyone has an opinion on this album. Because of OK Computer's critical and commercial success, many heads turned to see if it really was the 'best album of the nineties', 'the best music since you-know-who (the Beatles)', and if Radiohead really 'was going to save rock 'n roll'. Some people became diehard enthusiasts of the album (self included), some believed the album was overhyped and over praised, and some people were just indifferent. Everyone has a different standpoint though, and mine is that this is my favourite album of all time. Not what I think is the best of all time, but the album which I hold closest to my heart and soul. This is because I was able to really identify with it, and it was my first taste of really, really good music (previous buys were Weird Al Yankovic and Ace Of Base. Ugh). The fact that I even bought it in the first place still remains a mystery to me, because when I saw the album on the shelves of a music store, I was intrigued even though I hadn't even heard any of the songs on it, except thirty seconds of "Paranoid Android" which I heard on commercials, and I had never even previously heard of the British quintet named Radiohead. With all that in mind, I still ended up buying it even though I didn't know why.

The ironic thing about this album, which I live and die by today, is that I hated it to begin with. Save the fantastic "Paranoid Android" and the catchy "Airbag", I didn't appreciate the album at all. I wasn't interested in the slower tracks, because I was , when I purchased it, expecting an album full of "Paranoid Android"s. Despite this I kept on listening to the album, and it started to grow on me. And it grew. And grew.

There was a streak of about a couple of months where almost every night I would go to sleep listening to the album on my discman. When I was tired of hearing one song, I'd just go to another and they all equally impressed me once I learned to see the album for what it was worth: a beautiful collection of songs based on alienation of society and personal woes. It is a very personal album, and the lyrics are mysterious and can be applied to many ideas and concepts which are being debated as I write on Radiohead fan club sites. It is an album so good it's almost ridiculous. It has such a strong overall impression that for about a year I was obsessed with Radiohead along with countless other fans. It is depressing, but it is also delicate and lovely. Peaceful, yet chaotic. It's hard to even describe, because it offers something different for everyone. It is a journey through the mountains and valleys of the human soul, that leaves you stunned in the end. I've owned my copy since 1997, and it still amazes me today.

The album begins with Johnny Greenwood's electric guitar on the song "Airbag", which was written by lead singer Thom Yorke regarding his fear of cars and driving. It is one of the more rockin' tracks on the album, and contains great drums from Phil Selway and lead guitar from Johnny Greenwood. This is followed by the successful single "Paranoid Android", my favourite song on an album full of classics. It has been described as a "Bohemian Rhapsody" (by Queen) for the nineties, which is an accurate description of the six minute piece of music with an unusual structure. It is a few different movements in one song, but they blend together magnificently to make for a mind-blowing piece of music. It contains a three guitar attack from Thom Yorke's acoustic, Ed O'Brien rhythm, and Johnny Greenwood's brilliant lead guitar. Johnny's is one of the best guitar solos of all-time, and it is something that I have many times tried to imitate on my own guitar unsuccessfully. The explosive loud part is followed by a quieter acoustic section where Thom Yorke wails "Rain down, rain down, come on rain down on me". It's would be pretty depressing if it wasn't surrounded by such eccentric guitar playing. It's my favourite song on the album, but it's in tight competition with some others.

Next is "Subterranean Homesick Alien", a spacey venture that is euphoric and dream-like in it's delivery. Thom sings some beautiful lyrics in this song, who's voice is accompanied by some very lovely music. This is followed by the music that can be heard at the end of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet movie, and is appropriately titled "Exit Music (For A Film)". It starts off with just Thom and an acoustic guitar, and is utterly ravishing. Some great keyboard work is featured here (probably by the multi-talented Johnny Greenwood), but it really steps up when Phil Selway's drums come in. Great drumming, and it adds to the alluring climax of the song. This is immediately followed by "Let Down", an emotionally stunning track featuring such effective lyrics as "Transport. Motorways and tramlines. Starting and then stopping. Taking off and landing. The emptiest of feelings. Sentimental drivel. Clinging on to bottles. When it comes it's soso. Disappointing". It sounds discombobulating, but the unjointed lyrics combine for a powerful impression. It's another track with lyrics suggesting that Yorke is fed up with society and doesn't know where to turn. It features perfect backup vocals from Ed O'Brien, and solid drumming by Selway.

The second single of the disc is "Karma Police", which has delicious piano played by Yorke, as well as effective bass and vocals. It really unwinds in the end with synthesizers which is an unexpected yet effective end to the first half of the disc. The second half begins with a spoken word piece called "Fitter Happier" that is spoken by a computer. How fitting. It is more of the same alienated and frustrated lyrics, which works well for the album but is easily avoidable. Next is the rockin' "Electioneering", which is a great electric guitar piece complete with a cowbell. Lyrics are "I will stop, I will stop at nothing, say the right things, when electioneering, when I go forwards, you go backwards, and somewhere we will meet, riot shields, voodoo economics, it's just business, cattle prods and the I.M.F.". It's frustration all right, but this time directed towards the governments of the eight richest countries in the world, in which Thom has always been a public spokesperson on third world debt. Oh, yeah, the song has great guitars, bass by Colin Greenwood, and drumming too.

Next is "Climbing Up The Walls", which is, quite frankly, scary. It has a very grim impression, with spacey guitar, Thom's distorted vocals, beautiful strings, and spooky sound effects in the background. The only thing that really holds this track together is Selway's drumming. It also features a great horn solo. This is followed by "No Surprises", which always reminds me of an ice cream truck music. This is because it's features a glockinspiel melody played by Johnny Greenwood, as well as gorgeous guitar from O'Brien. Yorke's disenchanting lyrics are a strange yet comfortable fit to this adorable third single.

Next is "Lucky". It is, simply put, brilliant. It was a song written and released before any other songs on the album were completed, because it was included on a war victims benefit album. It was an immediate indication that OK Computer was going to be something special, and it is one of the finest tracks on the album. Actually, on a semi-recent survey of a couple hundred Radiohead fans, this track was chosen to be the overall favourite on the album, but not by much. It is a minor key electric guitar ballad impeccably played by O'Brien. This track features some mindblowing vocals from Yorke and a great mini-solo from Johnny Greenwood. It is a very moving piece of music. It is followed by the album closer, "The Tourist", which is the only song on the album written by Johnny Greenwood. It has lots of space within it, and contains fabulous vocals and guitar work. It crescendos masterfully with impressive guitars and keyboards until it lets you down easy with some quiet drums followed by a single note played by a glockinspiel to end the album.

Stunning and breathtaking in it's beauty, OK Computer is a masterpiece of masterpieces. It has fantastic song writing combined with expert group musicianship as well as a fine display of experimentation. It is emotional and personal, and also powerful and rockin'. This music is just so meaningful that it probably, given time, can win anyone over. It took me a couple of weeks, and I hated it at first. Now I'm a diehard Radiohead fan, and this album started it all. It is complex and experimental, but it never loses focus at any point. I can't even adequately describe this album, it really is one of those things that you'll have to learn about on your own. All I can really do is advise you that if you purchase this album, only then will you really be able to appreciate this masterpiece for what it is.

Best of all time? It just might be.

For more reviews by the Musician, log on to: http://www.epinions.com/user-the_musician

Here's what others reviewers have to say:
"...OK COMPUTER - a stunning art-rock tour de force - will have you reeling back to their debut, PABLO HONEY, for insight into the group's dramatic evolution..." 4 Stars (out of 5) Rolling Stone 7/10-24/97, pp. 117-118

"...Unlike their majestic models U2, Radiohead take on techno without switching instruments or employing trendy producers....As with post-rockers Tortoise, Laika, and Seefeel, Radiohead have a fuzzbox or two and obviously know how to use 'em..." 8 (out of 10) Spin 8/97, pp.112-113


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Amnesiac

Heh, I like this record most of Radiohead's sometimes.

---

Radiohead
Amnesiac
[Capitol]
Rating: 9.0

After months of waiting, and several tentative release dates, Amnesiac finally hit store shelves last Tuesday. Since last October, we've been hearing that this album, recorded during the same sessions as last year's wildly experimental Kid A, would serve as a return to the band's mid-90's roots. Now we come to find it was all a lie.

Not that it gets me down. As far as I'm concerned, Kid A is Radiohead's defining achievement. A total departure from the conventional rock formats of OK Computer and The Bends, Kid A drew from far more abstract and obscure influences than its predecessors. Whereas previous outings captured echoes of U2 and Pink Floyd, Kid A took what it could use from the Talking Heads, Can, Talk Talk, and modern-day IDM artists, and combined it with Radiohead's irrepressible originality and sparkling, alien production. Whether you liked the end result or not, the fact that they had the balls to challenge mainstream insipidness with such heroic creativity was admirable.

That said, Amnesiac is about as close to The Bends as Miss Cleo is to Jamaican. And within the first ten seconds of its opening track, "Packt like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box," the band crushes that rumor like a bug in the ground. Sparse, clanging percussion evokes abandoned swingsets. Keyboards whir to sonorous life, humming resonantly. Guitars are curiously marked absent. Production-wise, the track could have nestled cozily alongside Kid A's strangest moments, yet its melody is stunningly more infectious than even that album's height of accessibility, "Optimistic." Amidst chattering synths and twisted metal, Thom Yorke casually insists that he's "a reasonable man," and politely intones the album's most quoted lyric: "Get off my case."

The clattering, confrontational "Packt" segues awkwardly into "Pyramid Song," a sweeping piano-and-strings ballad, whose unusual timing is difficult to nail down until Phil Selway's live drums give perspective on the punchdrunk rhythm. Yorke croons some of his most poetic lyrics since "No Surprises," inspired by passages from Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. Amidst swelling orchestration and Satie-esque piano chords, Yorke croons a dream-like scenario in which he's visited by black-eyed angels, and his past and future loves.

4/4 traditionalists will take an immediate liking to the very OK Computer-ish "Dollars and Cents," whose lyrical content is strikingly similar to the anti-government, anti-corporate themes expressed on the 1997 classic. Jonny Greenwood's minimal, warped guitarwork and distant string arrangements float celestially over brother Colin's menacing basslines and Selway's delicate drumming. "Knives Out" is another OK Computer-style reverbathon, replete with strummed acoustics, chiming electrics, and a not-too-tasteful rehashing of a prominent guitar line from "Paranoid Android." Great melody. However, they've fucking used it before. The song also loses points for containing the line, "Shove it in your mouth." Really, Thom.

Similarly disappointing is "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors." Powered by a gritty industrial beat, the song's intentional abstractness, for the first time ever, seems forced and caricatured. Thom's MacinYorke vocal treatments never seemed terribly groundbreaking, and here, the gimmick has gone utterly limp. Yorke's lyrical content is also at its most unchallenging, as he educates us on the many varieties of doors that exist, over oafish, programmed beats worthy of a Cleopatra Records sampler. Elsewhere, "Hunting Bears" is a two-minute instrumental clip of aimless guitar noodling that shoots for Neil Young's Dead Man soundtrack but comes off as a cutrate Wish You Were Here outtake. A track like this is meant to segue into a related piece of music; instead, we're flung headfirst into the completely dissimilar "Like Spinning Plates."

If nothing else, Radiohead have always realized the emotional impact of a stunning album closer, and Amnesiac offers two. Sitting side by side, "Like Spinning Plates" and "Life in a Glasshouse" are so vastly superior to the album's other tracks that the album's few misteps are easily forgiven. "Spinning Plates," while a much better fit for Kid A, is nonetheless one of Radiohead's most affecting tracks to date. It opens with a digitally simulated "spinning" sound, disorienting reversed keyboard, and subtle keyboard pings. The song hits its peak when Yorke's indecipherable backwards vocals unexpectedly revert to traditional forward singing during the mournful climax, "And this just feels like/ Spinning plates/ My body's floating down a muddy river."

But if "Like Spinning Plates" would have been a fitting apex for Kid A, "Life in a Glasshouse" is entirely suited to the eclectic Amnesiac. Rather than creating a unique, Frankensteinian amalgamation from fragments of other genres, Radiohead instead target a style of music that hasn't been touched for decades: Edison-era big band. In the process of adapting the archaic jazz sound to polyrhythmic piano chords and rock lyricism, Radiohead touch upon an incredibly unique sound that could potentially inspire an entirely new genre.

"Glasshouse" is most easily (and most often) likened to a New Orleans funeral dirge-- probably because it's not far off the mark. Largely inspired by Louis Armstrong's "St James Infirmary," this track is the least like the others on Amnesiac, and easily the record's winning moment. When, amidst rueful trombone, tumbling clarinet, and the crushingly emotive trumpet of longtime BBC session musician Humphrey Lyttelton, Yorke insists, "Of course I'd like to sit around and chat/ Of course I'd like to stay and chew the fat," and follows it with a minute of wailing "only, only, only... there's someone listening in," the intensity is indescribable.

Despite the heights attained by much of Amnesiac, I prefer Kid A for a number of reasons. Quality aside, the questionable sequencing of Amnesiac does little to hush the argument that the record is merely a thinly veiled b-sides compilation; Kid A played out as a cohesive whole that evoked panic and paranoia as well as surrealism and disorientation. Still, Amnesiac's highlights were undeniably worth the wait, and easily overcome its occasional patchiness. Now if you'll pardon me, I have to go untie DiCrescenzo.

-Ryan Schreiber
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Hail to the Thief

Radiohead
Hail to the Thief
[Capitol; 2003]
Rating: 9.3

When I head out to purchase Hail to the Thief during my designated lunch break today-- an allowance Thom Yorke would surely turn into a fatalistic, Orwellian meditation on routine and alienation-- I'll mingle with teenagers and CEOs frantic to walk out with their own copy. Because today, Radiohead are U2, Pink Floyd, and Queen-- and they could have been bigger than The Beatles if the success of "Creep" hadn't agitated an Oxford-bred guilt complex. As Yorke put it in Meeting People Is Easy: "English people aren't impressed. There's this automatic assumption that any degree of success means that you've cheated. Or you're full of shit."

That's a cross Thom no longer has to bear, since whatever shit he was full of was beaten out of him-- in his hometown, no less-- one night in 2000. Like Johnny, the more thoroughly bloodied protagonist from Mike Leigh's Naked, the assault lent Thom an appreciation of reality's ominous urgency, quite possibly for the first time. Protected from street-level human misery-- first by privilege, then by wit, later by celebrity-- Yorke labored for years under the misguided belief that the world is tangible, that it can be changed, that any dignified person would be miserable to live here. A mild pummeling at the hands of embittered local punters refocused this unparalleled modern songwriter on more immediate and emotionally resonant issues, stuffing him back in boots he was most certainly growing too big for.

Which is not to advocate violence, or suggest that any end could justify its employ, but there are tertiary benefits when an artist's perspective is forcibly altered. Listen to Kid A, the most remarkably finessed redesign of an established band's sound since U2 recorded Achtung Baby: A reaction to overexposure, the undermining effects of commodification, and the alienation of celebrity, the record hasn't aged a day, though Amnesiac-- a less inspired collection of underdeveloped tunes from the same sessions-- has somewhat dulled its glimmer. The two albums were written and recorded before Thom was attacked, before he became a father, before the world became a lot smaller, when nothing really mattered. Hail to the Thief is almost four years removed from the reality he last wrote about, and for its suspicious title and Yorke's recent political exploits, it's thankfully less concerned about third world debt and globalist conspiracy theories than I'd expected. Still, the record is not without its simplistic admonitions.

Hail to the Thief doesn't dig up Britpop skeletons from The Bends, and it's not OK Computer II, as Yorke christened it in the press. Rather, it's a holding pattern; Yorke has confessed as much, and his excusatory remarks only underscore his chief failing: He believes radical change is the best option in all cases, and only feels pride in doing something "new" (quotes here, since Eno had ample reason to bristle at Kid A). Yorke can't see that Hail to the Thief is nothing to apologize for, that Radiohead are a band, and that, after a fashion, bands are defined by their music. Much as U2's Zooropa still sounded like U2, anything Radiohead does from here on out will sound like Radiohead.

The triumphant "2 + 2 = 5" could only work as the set's opener: It's an encompassing declaration of intent, defining the exploratory boundaries of Hail to the Thief as well as the professedly temporary return to "rocking out," something Ed O'Brien's been wanting to do ever since Kid A was born. As a preface to headier analysis later in the record, Thom deals with his recent political distractions, pointing out the medieval ignorance of inaction in the face of overwhelming odds: "Are you such a dreamer/ To put the world to rights?/ I'll stay home forever/ Where two and two always makes up five." It's a bit grandiose, but he rightly concedes the possible arrogance of his bravado during the tune's neurotically charged finale, "Go and tell the king that the sky is falling in/ When it's not/ Maybe not."

Not as topical-- perhaps even reassuringly vague-- "Sit Down. Stand Up." returns us to those old fears of impotence in the face of global forces at work, but as a new father, Thom has every right to revisit one of the great societal laments in rock history, OK Computer. Juxtaposing a dread spawned by media oversaturation with hands-over-ears denial of the rain falling outside, the track is devastating in its defeated isolation, the thoughts of a medicated droogie drooling in his cell on a Sunday afternoon, bubbling under the skin. Though it's compositionally identical to "2 + 2 = 5", the darker subject matter and more sinister execution-- in the form of far-off piano melodies, icy xylophone hits and throttling vocal doubling-- reveal a demonic twin caught sideways in a cracked mirror.

Leading with such an excellent couplet, it's something of a disappointment to find that those reactionary barbs about stagnation Yorke is trying to defuse are critically valid, if irrelevant to fans. "Sail to the Moon" has the serenity to survive its lamentably tired title and refrain, but for its beauty, it's both lyrically and melodically reconstituted from better ballads past, like "Pyramid Song", "How to Disappear Completely", and "The Tourist". For fans, it's another wondrous lullaby from Radiohead; for critics, it's not only nothing new, it's topically ridiculous, as Thom cautions his newborn son: "Maybe you'll be president/ But know right from wrong/ Or in the flood/ You'll build an Ark/ And sail us to the moon." It's an apocalyptic vision with all the emotional impact of Steven Spielberg's A.I.

"Backdrifts" is the first beacon signaling that Radiohead haven't lost touch with the experimental nature of Kid A and Amnesiac. This carefully attended piece-- a boxed-in, minimal collection of sine waves, gurgling vocal delay and distorted drum machine loops-- is easily overlooked on first listen; in a moment of levity, the band cuts loose with reverse-echoed piano and guitar swipes done up as scratching vinyl. "Go to Sleep", a tightened retread of Amnesiac's Smiths tribute "Knives Out", drapes Morricone reverb and Perkins twang over hugely panned acoustic guitars. The tune carries through a surprisingly traditional half-time Britpop chorus as Yorke rambles through placeholder lyrics, alternating tossed-off lines like, "We don't want the loonies taking over," with the constant response, "Over my dead body."

This worrisome middling leads into "Where I End and You Begin", which is the only real low point on the album, as aside from Yorke's vocals, it's simply a U2 song. Shuffling snare rolls usher along an admittedly succulent liquid bassline, but these are only drawn out from their terrestrial locus by a hard-panned pair of keyboard tracks, which, for their simplicity, rescue an otherwise unsalvageable track. The finale is more intriguing, with its raspy whispers and excellent melodic interplay, but for the most part, this is chaos stacked high to mask creative nudity underneath.

"We Suck Young Blood" returns to the piano mode the band has explored increasingly since Kid A, a sort of drunken New Orleans death dirge that embodies its vampiric title, creeping along at a measured, sickly pace punctuated only by languid, distanced handclaps. The approach pays off hugely, as Yorke's gorgeous, metallic whinny embraces the stumbling progression with harmony after harmony, and moments of depressed, gentle wistfulness.

Along with "Backdrifts", "The Gloaming" exposes the band's potential future. Simple, looping glitches and obstinate digital blurts dash all expectations, remaining resolutely compact, borrowing huge synthetic reverb plates such that Yorke can sing over his own voice. It's arguably academic in its basic composition-- a theoretical dare-- but "The Gloaming" is one of few risks on this relatively sociable record, a wink to the more studious members of their audience.

Which is where the advance single "There There" picks up, embodying the unification of Radiohead's recently mixed aims. Jonny wants to play with analog synths, Ed and Colin want to bash guitars, Thom wants to change music forever, and they finally meet up in this terrifically strange, yet structurally straightforward anthem. "There There" builds on more universal lyrics, soaring harmonies and a thundering crescendo the band wisely trimmed from its concert length (it originally began after Yorke's midpoint scream). Yorke said he wept uncontrollably when he heard the first mix of it, and the unmastered MP3s of Hail to the Thief which leaked in March support his professed reaction: Unlike the rest of the album, "There There" is essentially unchanged.

Possibly even more inspiring (and enduring) are "Myxomatosis" and "A Wolf at the Door", two of the last tracks on the album. The former is a buzzing prog redux of OK Computer's "Airbag" that shows how the simplicity Radiohead strive for can work wonders with tempo; drums fall all over the track until Thom winds up a layered, head-spinning (intoxicated?) verse that spills the rhythm onto the floor. It's a dizzying stereo-panned stomp, and one of Hail to the Thief's finest moments.

As usual, Radiohead save a masterstroke for the closing slot: "A Wolf at the Door" continues in the peculiarly Slavic jazz-blues mode first explored in Amnesiac's Russo-Bayou parlor waltz "Life in a Glasshouse". But "A Wolf at the Door" is more thorough, refined and consequently potent-- almost slick-- in comparison with its drunken, ephemeral predecessor. It's here, at the end of things, that Yorke most openly deals with the impact of his physical assault three years ago and his still-maddening fears of role-playing traps in society and relationships (nicely summarized in a quick nod to Bryan Forbes' terrifying The Stepford Wives). Evil is out there-- he's suffered its wrath-- and like a terrified Chechnyan matriarch, he relies on tangible protection from the fuckers and future come to ransom his child.

For its moments of gravity and excellence, Hail to the Thief is an arrow, pointing toward the clearly darker, more frenetic territory the band have up to now only poked at curiously. Experimentation fueled the creativity that gave us Kid A and Amnesiac, but that's old hat to Radiohead, who are trying-- and largely succeeding-- in their efforts to shape pop music into as boundless and possible a medium as it should be. Without succumbing to dilettantism, they continue to absorb and refract simpler posits from the underground, ideas that are usually satisfied to wallow in their mere novelty. The syncretic mania of Radiohead continues unabated, and though Hail to the Thief will likely fade into their catalog as a slight placeholder once their promissory transformation is complete, most of us will long cherish the view from this bridge.

-Chris Ott, June 10th, 2003

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OK Computer

Radiohead
OK Computer
[Capitol]
Rating: 10.0

Thru space at 1.2 light years per hour, Radiohead's third piece of incredible work, OK Computer, is not only their best yet, but one of the year's greatest releases.

The record is brimming with genuine emotion, beautiful and complex imagery and music, and lyrics that are at once passive and fire-breathing. OK Computer is like tossing David Bowie, old U2, Spacehog and lots of Pink Floyd into a blender and pushing the 'kill' button.

Thom Yorke's fragile vocals backed by the intricate guitar duels of Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway's intense, rhythmic pounding and the subtle but effective bass guitar of Colin Greenwood sends an energetic flare clean through your speakers, hurtling into the room around you and charging the air with static electricity. When Yorke sings, "In an interstellar burst / I am back to save the universe," you believe him.

OK Computer is the first album to intellegently express vehement hatred toward the corporate world's replacement of human emotion and personality with robotic behavior in their attempt to be "more professional." Yorke's disgust with self- help programs and "successful" businessmen is the focus, and if you're a person with any integrity whatsoever that's set foot in a Class A office building, you can probably relate.

Radiohead only seem to get better as time progresses, but Thom Yorke's expressed some doubt as to whether or not they can ever top this record. If they can, they'll have established themselves as one of the most outstanding rock bands the '90s had to offer. If not, they still came out of the deal with one album of unadulterated genius. Time will tell.

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Kid A

Radiohead
Kid A
[Capitol]
Rating: 10.0

I had never even seen a shooting star before. 25 years of rotations, passes through comets' paths, and travel, and to my memory I had never witnessed burning debris scratch across the night sky. Radiohead were hunched over their instruments. Thom Yorke slowly beat on a grand piano, singing, eyes closed, into his microphone like he was trying to kiss around a big nose. Colin Greenwood tapped patiently on a double bass, waiting for his cue. White pearls of arena light swam over their faces. A lazy disco light spilled artificial constellations inside the aluminum cove of the makeshift stage. The metal skeleton of the stage ate one end of Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, on the steps of the Santa Croce Cathedral. Michelangelo's bones and cobblestone laid beneath. I stared entranced, soaking in Radiohead's new material, chiseling each sound into the best functioning parts of my brain which would be the only sound system for the material for months.

The butterscotch lamps along the walls of the tight city square bled upward into the cobalt sky, which seemed as strikingly artificial and perfect as a wizard's cap. The staccato piano chords ascended repeatedly. "Black eyed angels swam at me," Yorke sang like his dying words. "There was nothing to fear, nothing to hide." The trained critical part of me marked the similarity to Coltrane's "Ole." The human part of me wept in awe.

The Italians surrounding me held their breath in communion (save for the drunken few shouting "Criep!"). Suddenly, a rise of whistles and orgasmic cries swept unfittingly through the crowd. The song, "Egyptian Song," was certainly momentous, but wasn't the response more apt for, well, "Creep?" I looked up. I thought it was fireworks. A teardrop of fire shot from space and disappeared behind the church where the syrupy River Arno crawled. Radiohead had the heavens on their side.

For further testament, Chip Chanko and I both suffered auto-debilitating accidents in the same week, in different parts of the country, while blasting "Airbag" in our respective Japanese imports. For months, I feared playing the song about car crashes in my car, just as I'd feared passing 18- wheelers after nearly being crushed by one in 1990. With good reason, I suspect Radiohead to possess incomprehensible powers. The evidence is only compounded with Kid A-- the rubber match in the band's legacy-- an album which completely obliterates how albums, and Radiohead themselves, will be considered.

Even the heralded OK Computer has been nudged down one spot in Valhalla. Kid A makes rock and roll childish. Considerations on its merits as "rock" (i.e. its radio fodder potential, its guitar riffs, and its hooks) are pointless. Comparing this to other albums is like comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper. And not because it's jazz or fusion or ambient or electronic. Classifications don't come to mind once deep inside this expansive, hypnotic world. Ransom, the philologist hero of C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet who is kidnapped and taken to another planet, initially finds his scholarship useless in his new surroundings, and just tries to survive the beautiful new world.

This is an emotional, psychological experience. Kid A sounds like a clouded brain trying to recall an alien abduction. It's the sound of a band, and its leader, losing faith in themselves, destroying themselves, and subsequently rebuilding a perfect entity. In other words, Radiohead hated being Radiohead, but ended up with the most ideal, natural Radiohead record yet.

"Everything in Its Right Place" opens like Close Encounters spaceships communicating with pipe organs. As your ears decide whether the tones are coming or going, Thom Yorke's Cuisinarted voice struggles for its tongue. "Everything," Yorke belts in uplifting sighs. The first-person mantra of "There are two colors in my head" is repeated until the line between Yorke's mind and the listener's mind is erased.

Skittering toy boxes open the album's title song, which, like the track "Idioteque," shows a heavy Warp Records influence. The vocoder lullaby lulls you deceivingly before the riotous "National Anthem." Mean, fuzzy bass shapes the spine as unnerving theremin choirs limn. Brash brass bursts from above like Terry Gilliam's animated foot. The horns swarm as Yorke screams, begs, "Turn it off!" It's the album's shrill peak, but just one of the incessant goosebumps raisers.

After the rockets exhaust, Radiohead float in their lone orbit. "How to Disappear Completely" boils down "Let Down" and "Karma Police" to their spectral essence. The string-laden ballad comes closest to bridging Yorke's lyrical sentiment to the instrumental effect. "I float down the Liffey/ I'm not here/ This isn't happening," he sings in his trademark falsetto. The strings melt and weep as the album shifts into its underwater mode. "Treefingers," an ambient soundscape similar in sound and intent to Side B of Bowie and Eno's Low, calms after the record's emotionally strenuous first half.

The primal, brooding guitar attack of "Optimistic" stomps like mating Tyrannosaurs. The lyrics seemingly taunt, "Try the best you can/ Try the best you can," before revealing the more resigned sentiment, "The best you can is good enough." For an album reportedly "lacking" in traditional Radiohead moments, this is the best summation of their former strengths. The track erodes into a light jam before morphing into "In Limbo." "I'm lost at sea," Yorke cries over clean, uneasy arpeggios. The ending flares with tractor beams as Yorke is vacuumed into nothingness. The aforementioned "Idioteque" clicks and thuds like Aphex Twin and Bjork's Homogenic, revealing brilliant new frontiers for the "band." For all the noise to this point, it's uncertain entirely who or what has created the music. There are rarely traditional arrangements in the ambiguous origin. This is part of the unique thrill of experiencing Kid A.

Pulsing organs and a stuttering snare delicately propel "Morning Bell." Yorke's breath can be heard frosting over the rainy, gray jam. Words accumulate and stick in his mouth like eye crust. "Walking walking walking walking," he mumbles while Jonny Greenwood squirts whale-chant feedback from his guitar. The closing "Motion Picture Soundtrack" brings to mind The White Album, as it somehow combines the sentiment of Lennon's LP1 closer-- the ode to his dead mother, "Julia"-- with Ringo and Paul's maudlin, yet sincere LP2 finale, "Goodnight." Pump organ and harp flutter as Yorke condones with affection, "I think you're crazy." To further emphasize your feeling at that moment and the album's overall theme, Yorke bows out with "I will see you in the next life." If you're not already there with him.

The experience and emotions tied to listening to Kid A are like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax. It's an album of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet 48 minutes. It will cleanse your brain of those little crustaceans of worries and inferior albums clinging inside the fold of your gray matter. The harrowing sounds hit from unseen angles and emanate with inhuman genesis. When the headphones peel off, and it occurs that six men (Nigel Godrich included) created this, it's clear that Radiohead must be the greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who. Breathing people made this record! And you can't wait to dive back in and try to prove that wrong over and over.

-Brent DiCrescenzo
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Treefingers

You can't think outside the box
When what you're thinking outside
the box
Is being thought inside the box
And is contemplated in the box

My past is my future,
my future is the past;
they all are the same,
they all are the same
to me.

Still stuck
in this box
still stuck
in this box
And no one, nothing
can pull me out.

I won't let them
I won't let you.

It is useless
it has no bearing
it will only
destroy a part
of me.

We're meant to be in the box
and the box gives us life.

It gives us
life.

I am childilsh;
we are all childish
deep at heart.
Some block it
drain it
strain it
bleed it
all to destroy their heart.

When they don't realize
The heart
that feels
that is not numb
that is not dumbed
and bruised
is the heart
of a child.

Children are such
fools.

When I look at a child
I see their ignorance
and I am jealous.
When I look at a child
and I see their happiness
I am jealous.

And I feel pity
for them
because one day

One day
A hand
will rip
out
their
hearts.
Make them bleed
Make
them
bleed.

The machine.
Will make.
Them.
Bleed.

Their hearts
torn out
Their feelings
numb.
Dumb.

The injury sustained
And the need for
an iron lung
to mend the scar
festering a
new heart.

My past is my future;
my future is my past.
There is no future left
at all.
There was no future
ever left
at all.

The mistakes of the past:
the history
Will repeat itself over
in monotonous mundanes
Will repeat itself over
in ill-gotten gains
Will repeat itself over
Repeat
Itself
Over
Repeat itself over

We are all suffering slaves.

We are all
suffering
slaves.

Suffering slaves
given the promise
of eternal life
in heaven.

There is no heaven
there is no God
there is no heaven
there is no hell

There is no God

Earth is heaven
Heaven is hell
Hell is Earth
Heaven is hell

They turned it
into
a deathground
where
we waste
our
lives
learning
Useless information

We learn
Useless information
When
We'll die
no matter what

There is no reason
to be greater
there is no reason
to be better

What you are
as you are born
is what you are
forever.

Built into
you
is how you
will function.

The world only seeks
to strain it,
shape it more,
and give you death.

I will not die for years and years,
but from this time I've died over and
over and over again.
There were no tears.

What has happened
Will happen
Again
What will happen
Has happened
Again

Humans are
flesh-heavy open-ready bleeding beings
Controlled by their bodies,
the machines.
The fate of chains of fate of being.
Humans are
flesh-covered useless-living foolish beings
Controlled by their bodies,
the machines.

I do not question
who I am
because who I am
is what I am
right now.

I do not question
why things are
because why things are
is because they are.

We all carry crosses
Like Jesus Christ
and these crosses:
bruise us
hurt us
prick us
nail us
rust us
labor us

shoulder, claim us

bleed us
feel us
hold us
learn us
teach us
show us

murder, maim us

And when,
at last,
us cowards
have died
our many deaths
There will be
the last.

They will take
our cross
and nail our hands,
arms, feet, legs
into it
And the blood will flow
more than it ever has.

Everyone is
crucified
before they die.

Jesus
Christ
died
for
nothing.

There is no heaven
There is no hell.
The Earth is hell
The Earth is heaven.

We suffer.
We die.
We live.
We cry.

We wonder.
We question
why.
We eat.
We sigh.
We think.
We buy.

We do.
We see.
We grieve.
We try.

We are.
We go.
We show.

We die.
We still die
despite all we are
all we do.

Intelligence will be
our downfall.

The fools are fools,
but a human is the same
as any other human.

Fools.

So be a world child
form a circle
before we all
go under.

Keep it all alive.
This sucking, eating,
dying land.
This sucking, eating,
dying race of man.

Keep it all alive.
This sucking, eating,
waste of time,
waste of plan.

The sucking, eating,
hoarding, selfish,
intelligent, great,
wonderful, useless,
race of man.

Keep them all alive.

One day they die.
All of them.

Each and every one.

And what was, and is,
will be no more.

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