The Blanton Museum of Art
"...But anyone who's heard their Interscope debut, Hopes and Fears, knows there's greater depth to this piano-rock trio. Combining the catchier aspects of James and even Radiohead, they've made a subversively accessible UK pop record..."
"...Ever since the London fourpiece broke through with 2000's beautiful Parachutes, Coldplay has escalated to a level that bands only dream of. There's U2, Radiohead, and then Coldplay..."
"...This young, sometimes-long-winded crew must have OK Computer on repeat, as Brandon Whitten's reverbed vox mimics a more subtle Thom Yorke over a sea of layered textures. Pompeii follows, another young and eager band taking their cues more from Death Cab for Cutie than Radiohead..."
"...Monster Movie is Christian Savill and Sean Hewson, and their latest disc is Transistor on Chicago's Graveface Records. While they're from Chi-town, Rachel Staggs of Austin's Experimental Aircraft lends her vocals to several of the LP's wispy tunes, from the Radiohead-ish "Left" to the beach-friendly harmonies of "The Family Plot." Elsewhere in the sonic universe, Staggs has created Eau Claire, a duo with Chicago solo artist Jessica Bailiff..."
"...Their self-released debut lacks a bit of energy, but this is probably a band that you see live rather than listen to at home. Melanie HauptBLUE MERLE12mid, Buffalo Billiards More Dave Matthews fans have a Radiohead disc in their collection than would make Thom Yorke comfortable..."
"...Following the respectable success of last winter's otherwise disappointing self-titled debut, they've returned with a four-song preview of what's in store for a second album, due fall 2005. Reteamed with producer Lars Göransson, Bear Chronicles claws out much of the overbearing Radiohead influence of the last LP in favor of a Faith No More-meets-Pulp sound..."
"...It brushed Pavement up against the mainstream the first and only time they did so thanks to minor radio hit "Cut Your Hair" and Stephen Malkmus' lyrical jabs at Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots, but within the ever-insular college-radio community, it was an unqualified smash. More cohesive and accessible than debut LP Slanted and Enchanted, it lives on in patches of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Radiohead's "National Anthem," which cribs its buzzing riff wholesale from "Hit the Plane Down." (It also struck a huge diminished chord locally, inspiring a long list of bands, including Fivehead, Okkervil River, Moonlight Towers, and Zykos.) Malkmus is Oscar Wilde in a CBGB shirt, a heavy-lidded poet of band life for whom no detail is too minor, no aside too superfluous..."
"...Most of all, Harris has captured a stunningly bleak love story between a lost nation and a handful of lost musicians, both dysfunctional, but also able to resurrect, if only for a short while, the kind of British pride-of-rock & roll that steamrolled through the Sixties. And don't forget: If not for the rise and self-dissolution of Britpop, we'd likely never have seen Radiohead crawl out from under the carcass...."
"...I'm praying for UFOs to come down and take me all away" on the undeniable "Ones and Zeroes." The real leader of the band, though, seems to be guitarist/producer Mike Freitag. Under his guidance, the band's sound takes shape with its creative eyes on the Smiths and Radiohead..."
"...The guitarists leave a layered trail of guitar loops as they sail down the causeway of their sonic waterworld. Disc one shoves off slowly, peaking on the church bell shuffle of "Shooting Gallery," where the scuffling mix of guitars and percussive electronics recall Radiohead..."
"...Where can you find the fluid, dream-state imagery of video/film director Jonathan Glazer (Radiohead's "Street Spirit," Sexy Beast), video sets by London-based VJ collective Addictive TV (whose past work for electronica icons Howie B. and Fatboy Slim has been eye candy of the purest stripe), and a veritable landslide of some of the most cutting-edge, dynamic, and just plain outrageously entertaining digital films and videos that raises the bar higher than most people can manage without benefit of cost-prohibitive neuromancing wetware upgrades?..."
"...Also praising the enduring merits of Black Francis et al. are Bono (who prefers Doolittle to Surfer Rosa), Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, Blur's Damon Albarn and Alex James, and several other Britpop luminaries..."
"...This is the evolution of electronica, a culmination of exasperation and sadness that merges into a work of art. Short opener "Birds" pulls from Radiohead, but soon such comparisons implode..."
"...And it's not just classic rock with the red concentric circles. The book's contributors hold up Nirvana's Nevermind, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton, and Radiohead's OK Computer as targets to prove their generation is equally capable of musical flatulence..."
"...31, and it just happens to be the very first album on Lenny Kravitz's freshly minted Roxie label. ...Of What Lies Beneath leaves the 12-bar licks back in Texas, crossing the atmospheric, chilled alt-rock of Spacehog, Remy Zero, or Bends-period Radiohead with the sophisticated singer-songwriterisms of David Gray, and just maybe, Bob Schneider..."
"...3) THOM YORKE, singer, Radiohead: Motive unclear; either practical joke or attempt to make U2 as paranoid as his band...."
"...More's the pity, because Trying to Never Catch Up isn't an easy album to pin down. One minute it's off in mystical Radiohead territory; the next, everything lands in Sgt..."
"...In fact, all but one of the seven tunes in his set came off the new album. He followed the opener with Radiohead's "High and Dry" and a detour through "Singin' in the Rain," again grandstanding on his seat, singing a cappella, and pounding rhythms inside and on top of the piano..."
"...Midnight, Fox & Hound These East Londoners are doing bang-up overseas business with the shamelessly sing-along pop of last year's Vehicles & Animals. While NME has described them as both "Pavement-esque pop mavericks" and "kind of Cockney Pulp who conduct their business in woozy waltz-time," they're a lot more fun and less filling than Radiohead or Coldplay..."
"...Smith's yowlings plus the mad pummeling of the Stooges result in a warped mix of "Flaming Lips meets Mercury Rev or T. Rex fronting Radiohead." The truth is in there somewhere..."