Album: Thom Yorke

The Eraser, XL

Thom Yorke's solo album comes from the sort of musical territory that spawned Radiohead's more experimental offerings, its nine songs stalked by moody synthesiser pads and bristling with itchy electro drum programmes, ticking away like time rusting up. Such, indeed, is one of the worries covered in "The Clock", a scuttling anxiety that builds to a brooding grandeur. Instability seems to be a recurrent theme, with Yorke fretting over "a prophecy of endless possibility" in "Analyse", struggling to reach someone in "And It Rained All Night", and emulating the dizzy, random motion of an insect in "Skip Divided". Set to hesitant piano chords and Yorke's keening, wordless harmonies, "The Eraser" itself is about the impossibility of escaping one's history ("the more you try to erase me, the more I'm there"), while "Atoms for Peace" finds him repulsed by "the wriggling, squiggling worm inside [which] devours from the inside out". Only on "Black Swan" is there any escape, with the funky rhythm and lovely Richard Thompson-esque guitar details supporting Yorke's urges: "Do yourself a favour, pack your bags, buy a ticket and get on the train," he suggests, "'cos this is fucked up, fucked up".

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'The Eraser', 'Black Swan', 'Atoms for Peace', 'The Clock'