They Might Be Wrong

One has to wonder what Radiohead are doing, releasing their third album in slightly over a year, particularly after a three-year hiatus between their triumphant OK Computer and the genre (and possibly fan-base) busting Kid A. And if Kid A alienated many during its stint as a bestseller, the companion album Amnesiac may have scared off even more with long periods of apparent downtime between opaque off-kilter songs exemplified by the single “Pyramid Song” and scarcely a decent hook on the album. By most counts then, this is hardly the ideal time to release a live album, despite the ’Head’s recent successful tour. So, as with Amnesiac, there may be more to the title I Might Be Wrong than merely the name of a song.

Wrong is clearly not intended to be the definitive live Radiohead recording; the eight songs barely scratching the surface of the monster two-disc concert format so beloved of Dave Mathews and Pearl Jam. Wrong also carefully avoids all the obvious song choices from Radiohead’s drop-dead back catalogue: There are no souped-up takes on “Paranoid Android” or stadium-sized singalongs of “Karma Police.” Instead, the album showcases new songs from the last two albums, and in many cases infuses them with a new vitality, though sometimes at the expense of the brooding dark atmospherics of the album takes. “The National Anthem” makes up most of what it loses in the disappearance of a horn section. The grinding drums and bass are anchored in what is ultimately recognizable as good old-fashioned rock-sensibility, despite the otherworldly wailings of whatever that new-fangled spooky sounding instrument Jonny Greenwood is playing these days. The song could never be straight-up however, and Thom Yorke’s distorted wailings and pantings ensure that it will not be mistaken for such. In fact, it is Yorke’s manic, disconcerting energy that carries much of the album, and gives the two slower songs their subtle bite when he lets his ridiculously, stunningly beautiful voice soar.

“Idioteque,” one of the most outstanding tracks from the new albums, is even more edgy and deranged on Wrong, the live drums providing the driving, lop-sided drum machine sample with even greater insistency. Being able to not only reproduce but improve on such an awkward song is impressive in itself. Yorke maintains the frantic energy unaccompanied except for drums for much of the song before surrendering to the chorus of industrial-style whooshes and tinkles that are fast becoming Radiohead’s stock-in-trade. Both “I Might Be Wrong” and “Dollars and Cents” are given accomplished treatments on the album, proving that Radiohead have successfully incorporated electronica elements into both their live and studio performances. The band put to shame the dilettante rock groups who reckon that an occasional drum loop will establish their credibility, as well as making it abundantly clear that they have not entirely given up the rock attitude that got them where they are today.

“Like Spinning Plates,” one of the more opaque and curtailed tracks on Amnesiac is here resurrected as a stuttering, swirling piano ballad, with what may be digs at critics concealed in its newly comprehensible lyrics: “While you make pretty speeches / I’m being cut to shreds / You feed me to the lions.”

The ethereal vulnerability of Yorke’s voice is at its best here in a way that has been absent from the new albums. The conspicuous failure on the album is “Everything In Its Right Place”: The song that heralded Radiohead’s shift from guitars into the keyboard realm as the eerie first song on Kid A sounded like a band gradually materializing out of the ether on a barren landscape. On Wrong, it sounds like a flat and somewhat aimless keyboard sample underlaying Yorke’s vocals. When deprived of the mystique of distortion, they start to sound a little silly and aimless as he repeats, “This morning I woke up sucking a lemon.”

And for those who feared that Yorke had mislaid his guitar entirely in his flight from rock-iconhood, he dusts off his acoustic for the enigmatic solo “True Love Waits” to close the album. “Fake Plastic Trees” it ain’t, but the song is appealing for its plaintive simplicity. It would sound trite coming from many others, but it is carried off by Yorke with aplomb, not least because it is a respite from the dense bells-and-whistles approach of the rest of the album. You almost feel like you’re overhearing Yorke singing himself to sleep in his hotel room after the show: “I’ll drown my beliefs / To have you be in peace / I’ll dress like your niece / To wash your swollen feet / Just don’t leave, don’t leave.” In the end, this is an album that fans will love, and that will continue to mystify the uninitiated, which may be exactly what Yorke and his homeboys intended.