Thom Yorke: The Eraser

Herald rating: * * * *

The news we were getting a Thom Yorke solo album this year instead of a new Radiohead album sounded as if the left turn the band had taken since 1997's OK Computer had turned into an uncontrolled skid.

True, the band's caustic last Hail to Thief marked a slight swing back to guitars and tunes, as it artfully traversed the electronic-six-string divide on predecessors Kid A and Amnesiac.

But having a solo Yorke release the contents of his laptop - albeit on an album produced by longtime Radiohead studio sherpa Nigel Godrich - sounded more like the end of something than a new beginning. And an album which might leave Yorke's end-is-nigh lyrical bent in stark relief. Can't wait, pass the gin.

But it is soon apparent - from the opening track - that The Eraser is neither a demo-sketchbook nor an electro-indulgence.

It is an album of songs, some as good as the many great ones Yorke has given voice to in the past. The voice of the Radiohead frontman manages to reach past the grand designs of the band's 21st century output and connects like he did on the band's early albums.

The sound may remind of Kid A's bleeping robotics shot through with coiled guitars and gentle piano, but the directness of the tracks prove that Yorke is human after all. Certainly, he has not cheered up much - the hook to Analyse runs "It gets you down, it gets you down". The closing Cymbal Rush sounds like the Yorke solo album some might have predicted, with its fractured bleeping, blipping and burbling.

And the end is still nigh - The Clock as well as And It Rained All Night suggest Yorke's watch is still set to armageddon time, though both come with an exciting rhythmic punch suggesting the influence of the Talking Heads/Brian Eno axis (Radiohead was named after a Heads song).

Even when in conspiracy theory mode - Harrowdown Hill is named for the place where Dr David Kelly committed suicide after being identified as the source in a BBC story challenging the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - Yorke's haunting melody is almost its most unsettling element, especially as its composer has described it as the "angriest song he has ever written".

It's just one of the many tracks which reboots one's appreciation of Yorke's much-imitated voice and the fierce intelligence behind it.

So does the beguiling Atoms for Peace, which but for its spartan keyboard framework could have been a Radiohead anthem of the Fake Plastic Trees / High and Dry ilk.

In such moments The Eraser almost works on two levels - what is there and what you imagine could have been had the songs been shared with Yorke's chums.

It might have sounded bigger and bolder. It is doubtful it would have sounded quite so special, so ****ing special.

Verdict: Radiohead front-man's solo album a rich substitute for long-awaited album from his group.

Label: XL Recordings