Thom Yorke
ANIMA
Release Date: Jun 27, 2019
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Indie Rock
Record label: XL Recordings
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Album Review: ANIMA by Thom Yorke
Excellent, Based on 12 Critics
Based on rating 9/10
Radiohead simply make 'Radiohead' music nowadays, and so do loads of other folks - everyone from The National to The 1975 to Beck have given it a go. One might presume, of course, that Thom Yorke would make 'Radiohead' music when operating solo, but this is generally not the case. His solo albums, soundtrack album and side projects have been outlets for material that he wants to take complete ownership of, for better or worse.
Based on rating 8.5/10
Thom Yorke has never had an issue with conversation. Whether at the center of the world's greatest rock band—as he has been for nearly 30 years—or as a solo artist, he has built a career on engaging his fans through the big ideas that have defined our generation. Whether it be climate change or the Iraq War, his efforts have been well-documented and scrutinized by those in the music press.
Based on rating 4.2/5
I think I missed something, but I'm not sure what. "Do you have trouble remembering your dreams？" Amazingly, that's not a Thom Yorke lyric but rather a line from the Alternate Reality Game advertising which preceded ANIMA. It was a silly but fun sci-fi thing which plastered posters everywhere from the London Underground to Milan claiming to have invented a device, the Dream Camera, which could "get your dreams back", instead playing a snippet of "Not the News" when the number was called. As usual, Thom's use of humour is disguising something very real, in much the same way that Radiohead's bleakest and dreariest moments are often their funniest.
Based on rating 8.3/10
Earlier this month, a strange advertisement for ANIMA Technologies appeared inside London's Tube. The company purported to have built something called a "Dream Camera," a device capable of capturing the world of the unconscious: "Just call or text the number and we'll get your dreams back," the copy promised. But curious callers were treated to a cryptic voice message, a jumble of stilted legalese read in a thin, unctuous voice, that apparently rendered the Dream Camera's promise moot: something about a cease and desist from the High Court, an admission of "serious and flagrant unlawful activities.
Based on rating 4/5
This is an artfully produced fever dream of an album that, in its doominess, suggests we should continue to pay credence to the prophet Thom Yorke Sadly, history failed to record whether Nostradamus was a smug man as well as an insightful one. Yet there must be a part of Thom Yorke - maybe he isn't aware of it even within himself - that looks at the world that has revealed itself in the two-decades since the release of Radiohead's breakthrough third album, ‘OK Computer’, and thinks, "told you so". No longer melodic soothsaying.
Based on rating 8/10
Melancholy and wariness have long informed and defined Thom Yorke's work with Radiohead and as a solo artist, and while we're decades removed from "Paranoid Android," he has made it apparent that these feelings are only ramping up with each day that passes in our present geopolitical turmoil. Though it was for a fictional scenario, Yorke channelled similar feelings into music for Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria, pulling him out of the world of laptops and DJ sets to provide a literal widescreen vision with which to pair his compositions ….
Based on rating 8/10
Thom Yorke is afraid. He's made a career of it. Rather one of note, you might know. Perhaps more than ever before in his lifetime, he has need to be. With the general global slide towards regression and vile absurdity, or Brexit closer to home, the paranoia of some of Radiohead's best material ….
Based on rating 3.8/5
Helping lead Radiohead, one of the biggest rock bands in the world, towards synths and drum machines. Releasing solo albums rooted in electronic music. Commissioning remixes of said solo work from Burial, Surgeon, Four Tet and other visionary electronic acts, and doing the same with the music of Radiohead. Collaborating with Flying Lotus, Björk, Mark Pritchard and Modeselektor.
Based on rating 7/10
It sounds counterintuitive to say Thom Yorke delivers uneasy music with a sense of ease, yet ANIMA unfurls with a slow, steady confidence that can be called comfortable. Perhaps this relaxed gait is due to how ANIMA finds Yorke treading familiar territory, revisiting the kind of jittery, chilly electronica that has been his solo specialty ever since he snuck out The Eraser in 2006. During the 13 years that separate The Eraser and ANIMA, indie and electronic music underwent several changes, but Yorke and his longtime producer Nigel Godrich aren't especially interested in chasing trends.
Opinion: Excellent
E lectronic music's Cassandra-in-chief has long soundtracked our age of anxiety with queasy mood music. His latest album takes its working methods from the live digital improv of LA e-jazz operative Flying Lotus and comes with a Paul Thomas Anderson short film. Although Yorke sounds refreshed, the results here don't vary wildly from the Radiohead frontman's instantly recognisable musical signatures, evolved over 20 years.
Opinion: Fantastic
Thom Yorke's work with Radiohead has already assured his position as one of this generation's most prized voices, but alongside this his solo excursions have gradually built into a universe of their own. 2006's 'The Eraser' was a bold, paranoid look at a country collapsing into dystopia, while subsequent work alongside Atoms For Peace and frequent co-conspirator Nigel Godrich have perhaps come close to matching his day job in scope and ambition. Despite this 'ANIMA' in many ways feel like it exists on its own, in a solitary void.
Opinion: Excellent
Rating: NNNN Thom Yorke's new album is named after a Jungian concept of a person's true inner self, often revealed through dreams. It's part of a heady conceptual framework the Radiohead frontman built for the new solo project, which also included vague ads on the London Underground about a "Dream Camera" that could capture the world of the unconscious. The album dropped alongside a 15-minute short film (or "one-reeler") directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and released on Netflix (the new home for visual albums?) that works like one version of that hypothetical dream camera.
'ANIMA'
is available now