"I Might Be Wrong" is the new Radiohead live album and contains songs from "Kid A" and "Amnesiac" in addition to the previously unrecorded "True Love Waits." Most of the songs are pleasant enough; they provide a thrusting hum that I imagine would be appropriate for riding a bike or running in cleats-in fact, any activity in which the listener provides his or her own motion will do. The vocals frequently blend into the whining and whizzing electronics, a style used with increasing frequency in their recent albums.
This is a pretty typical live album; as far as I can tell, most of the songs have changed very little. On several tracks, Thom is Eddie Vedder prophetic and, in "Morning Bell," he still pleads to be released, as if he were a genie in a bottle. However, I was genuinely happy to hear that Thome still has a gorgeous falsetto.
I should break here to explain why my tone has been somewhat mixed. Radiohead's second album, "The Bends," defined nighttime for me as an eighth grader, clarified dark air and icy stillness, concepts that play an important part in the early teenage years. Sometimes I still begin unconsciously to hum "High and Dry" when I look at the moon.
The Radiohead of then was a rich melee of curiosity and confusion, of self-pity and emotional masturbation. The new Radiohead plays the silent trill of nothing worth doing; it reverberates, but a necessary stillness runs through the churning cadence and cannot compliment the vibrations.
I admit to being a stubborn fuddy-duddy who would rather reminisce about 1996 and carry it into today than to accept unwanted change. I might have built the old Radiohead up to a skyscraping pedestal as well.
For those who are already tired of their new songs, hearing them live probably won't change your opinion. If you're a fan though, you may enjoy hearing "National Anthem," "Morning Bell," "Idioteque" and "Like Spinning Plates" in a more sudden, less sterile form. Idioteque is particularly motile and Thome's voice is heartier, more exasperated and surprisingly sensual. The listener rubs deeply into the hair of his chin.
My favorite is "True Love Waits," an older song that had never been released but had been popular at concerts, performed here in acoustic form. Many of the tracks are infinitely edible, like carrot sticks, but here Thom's voice builds a rippling appetite, rather than stifling it. His claim to be "just killing time," if taken lightheartedly, augments an endearing egotism that Radiohead fans must have learned to love.
As for the rest of the tracks, they're a tidy bag of low calorie treats. At the very least the album will provide countless more hours of background music for the lives of fans everywhere.