In Florence, they started the song with Ed O'Brien and Jonny Greenwood, normally guitarists, banging drums Kodo-style on either side of the stage. Then the band piled on the layers: Thom Yorke's fragile tenor, clangy guitar chords, an alienating chorus ("Just because you feel it doesn't mean it's there"), cathedral-toned baritone background vocals, a squalling guitar that occasionally surfaced above the mix.

They pushed this up-tempo dirgelike idea, and pushed it, and pushed it until it started to take off, even with all the baggage. Then, almost abruptly, they ramped it down, ending with a pair of upbeat triplets on a snare.

The structure of the song was relentless: hammer plus nail. That's the way Radiohead does it. Yes, they can be pretentious and self-indulgent, but they are absolutely tenacious in the way they pursue an idea. Radiohead can drive a concept further down the road than most other bands, even if it means covering some of the distance on the roof, sparks flying. Launched in the early '90s with the US hit "Creep," these five Oxford, England, high school classmates took off on a high arc with three critically adored CDs ("Pablo Honey," "The Bends," "OK Computer"). Their song "Paranoid Android" was a "Bohemian Rhapsody" for the end of the millennium.

But then, around 2000, the band made a sudden sharp turn into stark, digital soundscape experimentation, captured on "Kid A" and "Amnesiac." Some fans got off the bus at this point, turned off by a storied, gloried British band that had morphed into white-coated explorers of rock's cold electronic genome, obsessively deconstructing and reassembling its DNA.

But wasn't it about time -- a few years into the digital era -- that someone attempted to drape a sad, very sad, song over a binary grid? Or flattened vocals, foreground and background, into a layer of data?

True, a handful of minimalist electronic outfits, such as Autechre and Aphex Twin, had been working this territory, but let's face it, they are probably nearly academics, possibly TIAA-CREF members. What Radiohead brought to the project was the very thing some find insufferable: huge, over-the-top rock star self-importance and swagger. But that's what it took to sustain an experimental band people actually paid attention to.

Surprisingly, some of these theoretical lab experiments turned out to work well live. In Florence, I can report, the asynchronous repeating figure in "Everything in Its Right Place," from "Kid A," turned improbably into a groove. And "The National Anthem," a one-riff siege, rocked the small piazza the band played in Ferrara.

Many of Radiohead's new songs from "Hail to the Thief" are still chasing the same themes. "Backdrifts," propelled by a tight tangle of processed beats, crackles energetically; "Myxomatosis," pushed by an industrial bass line, plows straight ahead. But the band has a number of other inquiries open as well, like an emerging crop of bleary blues and broken down gospel tracks. "A Punchup at a Wedding" sounds like it was recorded on a barroom piano. "We Suck Young Blood" limps along accompanied by sloppy hand clapping that couldn't be more analog.

These last songs are physical in a lush, down and out sort of way, as if the band members emerged from some sort of atomic transporter and are patting themselves to see if they are still there in the flesh. And there is always, honestly, a high percentage of explorations that go nowhere: high-concept fragments that have you reaching for the "next track" button.

A few British writers have recently claimed that the band may in fact now have too many balls in the air, criticizing "Hail to the Thief" for being too varied, too mixed up, hinting maybe the band is now past its peak. And I agree with that, to a point. There is a certain fin de siecle "sampler" quality to the new CD. But that's what Radiohead is now: a kind of musical research group with a half-dozen ongoing laboratory experiments. Their importance comes from how they continue to combine and recombine these strains. That's still worth listening to.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Unconvinced

By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff, 8/9/2003

Recently, we learned a fascinating tidbit about Radiohead's mystical leader, Thom Yorke. Struggling with the pressures of fame, he sought counsel from REM's Michael Stipe.

ADVERTISEMENT

It's the kind of celebrity confab I expect from my generation's most famous musical freaks. Stipe and Yorke have a lot in common. They front bands that can play in a variety of styles. They became famous for crafting lyrics that are impossible to understand. They have fans who will insist that these abstract creations, songs even Yorke's own band members cannot explain, are both brilliant and heart wrenching.

And one more thing: Stipe and Yorke, under the guise of eccentricity, act out their rock star fantasies without paying the price. No paparazzi, no personal questions. These boys are different.

Wait. Am I just annoyed that Yorke spells his name

T-h-o-m? Or that his music is defined by Spin magazine as "transcendent, fragile, pre-apocalyptic math rock for a generation of forward-thinking fans"? Or that he's a vegetarian who also doesn't eat wheat? No, that would be petty.

What makes Radiohead easiest to avoid is the music.

Start with Yorke's voice, which sounds like a cross between Neil Young at his croakiest and Simply Red's Mick Hucknall at his most oversentimental. Listening to Radiohead, I can see Yorke in the studio, clutching the headphones, head thrown back and eyes closed. He is overwhelmed by the violence overtaking the world, disgusted with our leaders, confused by love.

So why, I want to know, does that translate into singing "the rain drops" 46 times or naming another ditty ("Myxomatosis") after a rabbit virus? Do I hate Radiohead? Of course not. "Hate" is a strong word I reserve for special people, like Bill Maher. I simply don't understand this band's appeal.

What I hear in Radiohead are glimmers of the bands I love. The electronic pop experimentation of the Beta Band. The off-kilter thrash of the Pixies. The booky gibberish of Pavement.

The total package, though, leaves me cold. Radiohead comes off as a band that deserves an advanced degree in mimicry, not another platinum album. I want to love the new CD, "Hail to the Thief." I want to let the ambience wash over me. I want to share an affection for this album with the millions of hooded sweatshirt-wearing Americans who will buy it.

The trouble is that the CD put me to sleep. Actually, it made me want to take a dive off the Sagamore Bridge until I remembered that I'm not suicidal. The first song has some get up and go, and as it gets louder and faster turns into a nice Pixies knockoff. But after that, the big sleep.

Maybe Radiohead's trying too hard. After all, how many of us are going to dig both "Backdrifts," a thumping, electronic dance track, and "Sail to the Moon," a piano ballad that slides into lite pop territory? Then we get "Go to Sleep," which could have fit on "Led Zeppelin III."

Some writers -- no, make that most writers -- would embrace this as admirably eclectic. So would I, if only the music had a pulse.

Don't be offended, Radiohead believers. Clearly, I'm in the minority. Just look at the Billboard charts, read the reviews. In giving an A to "Hail to the Thief" -- which, by the way, is not about George Bush's Florida victory in 2000, Thom sez, but about an election in 1888 -- Spin magazine's Will Hermes writes that "no other band makes fear or sorrow seem so empowering."

I just hope Thom has a plan for when it's over. Because when it is -- and almost every alternative rock band eventually runs out of commercial steam -- Yorke will have one of two choices. He can become curator of the Rainer Maria Rilke archives or take his rightful place in the opening slot of the Smiths reunion tour. Just be careful, Thom. We hear Morrissey doesn't like guys who don't eat wheat.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Unconventional

By Steve Morse, Globe Staff, 8/9/2003

Art rock is all but dead, having been edged aside by the swelling ranks of bad pop bands and angry metal acts and the continued plague of record executives who don't know one hand from the other. It's a brutal time for musicians who place artistry above money and who experiment with sounds, colors, and emotions the way that Radiohead does.

ADVERTISEMENT

Therefore, I'm finally on the bandwagon. I've come around to Radiohead despite the band's penchant for nerdy pretentiousness, inscrutable lyrics, and bizarrely stitched sounds that can induce headaches as much as euphoria. At least somebody is trying to break new ground, and you have to tip your hat to that.

There are some amazing moments on Radiohead's latest CD, "Hail to the Thief." The band not only brays against Orwellian mind control but often sounds absolutely hypnotic in the process. Art rock hasn't sounded this compelling in years.

Radiohead is the PhD version of Coldplay. The complexity of Radiohead's arrangements, even if sometimes unfathomable, has critics such as the Village Voice's Robert Christgau saying they have "the dubious, dangerous mantle of Only Band That Matters."

Well, that might come as a surprise to U2, but musically, Radiohead -- with its triple-guitar overlays, its computer-enhanced effects, and singer Thom Yorke's intergalactic wails and whines -- takes originality to another dimension.

I had enjoyed the early Radiohead albums "Pablo Honey" and "The Bends" but found the band to be rather stiff when I saw them in person at the now-defunct Venus de Milo on Lansdowne Street. Then, after the breakthrough "OK Computer" CD in 1997, I dropped off the train. I felt disenfranchised when Radiohead released the quintessentially moody records "Kid A" and "Amnesiac" in 2000 and 2001. Interesting projects, but where was the pulse? If you put those records on at a party, the guests might fall asleep. Unless, of course, psychedelics were involved. And at most parties these days, they are not.

When I read that the band worked up to 300 hours on just one song on "Kid A," that was a turnoff. They may be "rock's most analytical control freaks," as Time magazine recently wrote, but, really, get a life.

It's not that the new "Hail to the Thief" is suddenly all warmth and spontaneity. But there is a less guarded, rock 'n' roll feel on more tracks than expected. These include the recent single "There There" (with Yorke's wry observation "Just because you feel it doesn't mean it's there"), the cleverly satirical "A Punchup at a Wedding," and the intoxicating, industrial rock of "Myxomatosis," which is strangely named for a disease that is fatal to rabbits.

Then again, is "Myxomatosis" any stranger than the art-rock heyday of Yes and its opus "Tales From Topographic Oceans"? Maybe not. Just as Yes was ahead of the curve in the '70s, Radiohead remains ahead of its peers in the '00s. And you have to give them that credit. They've earned it.