Thom might be wrong

There are two types of Radiohead fans: Those who yearn for the days of Pablo Honey and The Bends and those who saw the future in Kid A and Amnesiac. The old guard versus the avant-garde. Alternative rock versus some strange incarnation of rock and modern classical. Thom Yorke's new solo album, The Eraser, is guaranteed to please neither.\nThe Eraser represents an attempt to appease two rival camps. Rather than pick a direction to head, the album inhabits a grey area between the simple song structures and driving rock grooves of Radiohead's earlier albums and their more recent futuristic noise experiments.\nThe fans who miss the guitar solos and rock n' roll sensibilities of those early albums will be dismayed to find that this album is completely without live drums and only minimally uses guitar on one track. The other fans will find that the song structures are predictable, formulaic and devoid of any kind of unscripted experimentalism. Eraser is basically nine tracks of Thom Yorke laying out his insecurities and social awkwardness over blip-bleep laptop beats.\nUp until now, Yorke has indirectly addressed his shortcomings and fears by creating a futuristic world of terror. A world where androids are in control and the next Ice Age is around the corner. On The Eraser, he focuses directly on himself. Thom Yorke's dirty laundry is old news. It has been public domain since the documentary "Making Friends is Easy" exposed him as an awkward egomaniac. An entire album of Yorke whining about whether or not girls like him and just how messed up his life can get is a new low.\nThis indiscretion might not be so egregious if the music on this album were stronger. The title track begins with a chopped up, fuzzed out piano sample and a computer sequenced beat. Yorke croons about how he will not be erased and much to his dismay neither will the subject of the song. Later he is joined by a ghostly chorus of Thom Yorkes and heavily distorted version of the piano sample that opened the track.\nNow you have the not-so-secret formula.\nJust make some slight variations and you have nine tracks that sound eerily similar. Piano samples, laptop beats, preprogrammed swoops of noise and the haunted choir were once innovative ideas but now Yorke refuses to move on. The Eraser suggests that Thom Yorke may not be the musical visionary he was once thought to be. \nThe album does have its moments. The vocal pyrotechnics on "Atoms for Peace" are beautiful in a way seldom heard in Radiohead's discography. The lyrics to "Cymbal Rush" portend Thom Yorke's famous future world that fans have come to love and fear. If it weren't followed by eight variants, the title track would stand out as an interesting experiment in fusing pop and noise. If Yorke's fans didn't have such high expectations, this entire album might go under the radar and occasionally a track might appear on the radio or a mixtape your friend made you.\nThe sad, but true, reality for Thom Yorke is that these expectations are very real and very justified.