Painfully incompatible with the throes of pop stardom (witness the band's long-form video Meeting People Is Easy if you have any doubt), Yorke and company have produced a genre-shattering release that unfailingly personifies disassociation and anomie, yet remains reasonably approachable. While focused nihilism is the album's recurring theme ("I've lost my way/washed out to sea/I'm lost at sea/Don't bother me" from "In Limbo"), Kid A's sonic environment is deeply textural and trancelike, a complex burst of white noise seemingly light years from the pop simplicity of previous singles such as "Fake Plastic Trees" and even "Karma Police." Take a closer walk with the disc (and crack open that mysterious black tray liner on the jewel box for a special treat -- an illustrated anti-World Trade Organization screed featuring the kind of Tristan Tzara-inspired dadaist cut-up poetry that fills a hundred pages of the band's official Web site, radiohead.com), and the CD unfolds with a grace and beauty all its own. Swim along with the chugging, open-stringed bass line of "The National Anthem" until you're hit by a blurt of horns halfway between John Zorn and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Marvel at the crisp staccato break-beats of "Idioteque." Or be swept away by the pure simplicity of Yorke's still impeccable voice and a bit of ringing electronic piano, as heard on "Everything in Its Right Place" and "Morning Bell."
Sadly, the album is not the be-all-and-end-all antidote with which old-school alt-rockers had hoped to cure our current cultural malaise. But it will certainly do until the next best thing comes along.