Producer Nigel Godrich has made of this a modern masterclass – and one that sets the bar for collaborations extremely high.
The chief difference between AMOK and The King Of Limbs is how alive and invested AMOK sounds, almost as if it’s a do-over of the frequently airless Limbs.
This seamless synthesis of sinew and silicon is crucial to the album’s slippery feel; there’s a pleasing fluidity and crooked funkiness to the arrangements that Yorke sometimes struggled to achieve on The Eraser.
Tken as a separate entity Atoms for Peace have made a good album that needn’t be bogged down by questions of what could’ve been.
Although most of AMOK is very electronic, the delivery is so relaxed that it doesn’t really feel electronic. It’s also hookier than you might expect.
AMOK is an album you'll need to spend time unpacking, which means it's cut from the same cloth as every good Radiohead album. But with this one, maybe you'll get to dance a little along the way.
The warmest, grooviest album Yorke has ever made – nine songs where next-level laptop science collides with wild, funky improvisation.
Amok might not be easy – why should it be? – but it’s never anything less than interesting, an accolade that can rarely be applied to artists this far into their career.
Expectations for the album itself have been insanely high, but thankfully, it lives up to the hype.
Amok shows Yorke successfully synthesizing his obsessions into a compelling and complete universe.
This goes way beyond bromance: away from the confines of their stagnant, perhaps loveless marriages, these men are making beautiful music together.
This is another Thom Yorke solo album, and it sounds really nice on decent headphones.
Amok achieves a seductive unity of purpose which is all the more impressive for stemming from the advent of additional personnel.
While Atoms For Peace inevitably doesn’t display that unique chemistry which is evident in spades when Mssrs Selway, Greenwood et al join the party, it remains an intriguing, if at times uneasy listen.
Amok is missing the end-of-days urgency of Yorke’s paranoid-android persona — and despite Flea’s presence, it could be filed under ”anti-funk.”
It is what it is, groovesome, textured electronica fleshed into organic warmth by a quintet of very proficient musicians.
Amok isn’t an album to be analyzed so much as experienced, preferably with headphones maximizing its occasionally mesmeric effect.
A glorified performance. It's a coming together of great minds who every so often emerge with something truly special.
AMOK isn’t quite dazzling, but it’s a clear improvement on its predecessor, and more than enough to win over old fans – and perhaps a few new ones, too.
While questions may frequently come up over how much of a band project Amok really is, the music for the most part, makes up any misgivings people may have.
For all the rhythmic chicanery at play, AMOK feels strangely static and contained, giving a perpetual sense of jogging in place.
There are moments of warped magic – haunting melodies, neat instrumental hooks, surprising turns of key and mood – but there are also times when you suspect it might have been more interesting to hear what Yorke and his collaborators came up with in the studio before it got eaten by ProTools.
Any record fronted by Thom Yorke will rely heavily on his contribution, and while it’s always a joy to hear him sing, Amok is light on truly memorable songs.
Yorke's lyrics, consisting mainly of repeated aphorisms and clichés, don't suggest any great depth ... But the sounds, bringing in elements of tropicalia, Afro-funk and laptronica, with glitches, rainforest sounds and superb analogue-synth squelches (if anyone steals the show here, it's Godrich), mean you hardly notice.
Yorke, it goes without saying, is a fine songwriter, so there's nothing particularly wrong with the solid AMOK. The problem is that there's nothing incredible about it, either.
Though far from the full-on dance album Yorke's DJ gigs and 50 Weapons single had presaged, Amok does feel like a collection of tracks, not songs.
Far from capturing their kinetic live energy, AMOK feels as isolated, distraught, and feeble as the characters littered about in Donwood’s tragic portrait.
AMOK might be a weaker, meeker product than the output of Radiohead, but its compact nature, its genre codes, and its context are what’s important here.
Though the roster of Atoms for Peace suggests a perfect blend of talents, the resultant amok is too much, too rapid, and too overwrought to reach the group’s full potential.
And then Yorkesus said: "let there be Idioteque, but it’s an album". And there was Idioteque, but it’s an album.
Imagine the weirdness of King Of Limbs era Radiohead, with the beauty and complexity of Thom Yorkes solo works, with goddamn Flea on bass. That's this album. It's fantastic.
Favorite Jams: Ingeune, Judge Jury and Executioner, Before Your Very Eyes
Lest Favorite: Unless
It amazes me that people don't like this album, fuckkk
But in that case I get to keep it all for myself ^^
If the universe could sing, it would sound something like this:
Lost to chaotic layers of sound, that reverberate to the ever evolving and self imploding rhythm,
Often spiraling off into a universe of its own, if there is a god may its voice be as gentle as Yorke's falsetto.
Lyrically, this is as abstract as the stars, sort of shining there, creating more questions than answers
and when ... read more
Before there was The Smile, the Radiohead side project everyone knew of was Atoms for Peace, this project takes on a lot more of the electronic elements present from the Kid A era with another dive into IDM and Glitch Pop with a much newer taste and feel to the music. I can't lie this doesn't feel as great as I thought, everything this album has on paper sounds amazing but this project feels like it is a bit underbaked and underutilized for a good amount of this album. It sounds good don't ... read more
1 | Before Your Very Eyes... 5:47 | 91 |
2 | Default 5:15 | 88 |
3 | Ingenue 4:30 | 92 |
4 | Dropped 4:57 | 88 |
5 | Unless 4:40 | 83 |
6 | Stuck Together Pieces 5:28 | 84 |
7 | Judge Jury and Executioner 3:28 | 83 |
8 | Reverse Running 5:06 | 84 |
9 | Amok 5:24 | 83 |
#4 | / | Clash |
#4 | / | MAGNET |
#10 | / | CraveOnline |
#10 | / | Dazed |
#13 | / | Crack Magazine |
#15 | / | Rolling Stone |
#17 | / | musicOMH |
#25 | / | FasterLouder |
#26 | / | The Line of Best Fit |
#27 | / | Uncut |