The other week, I decided it would be a good day to revisit Radiohead’s divisive The King of Limbs. Since it’s been out, I’ve considered it to be the worst Radiohead album. I mean, most people would argue that Pablo Honey is their worst, but at least that album had Creep and Blow Out, and at least sounded full of potential (Which, thank god, was fully realized). On The King of Limbs, everything is pretty and ominous, but it is a trudge. It was basically the sonic equivalent of watching paint dry. Save the alright Lotus Flower, there was something that just felt off. And it’s not like the songs themselves were bad. The From the Basement session they did was absolutely stunning. However, when all this stuff was recorded, there’s just a lack of passion…almost a lack of humanity.

That’s the same problem I got from this new effort from this “Spin-off” super group. Atoms For Peace has Radiohead vocalist Thom Yorke and producer Nigel Godrich, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea, Joey Waronker (who has worked with Beck and R.E.M.), and Mauro Refosco (No clue). The album sounds heavily electronic, spacious, and eerie. It often feels like a balancing act on a tight rope. There’s never any sense of comfort, and there are moments where it seems like it’s going to fall off. Atoms For Peace kind of pull off the balancing act, but they almost hit the ground hard many times.

There are moments that are sonically great. Default is a song that’s grown on me quite a bit. It’s complex, and it’s full of electronic clicks and ominous bass that really make it stick out. But then there’s a lot where things get either monotonous or ugly. The repeated synths on Ingenue are awkward, and Yorke’s singing on the song feels more weak and wimpy than soft and sensitive.

The album’s incredibly sparse, with a whole lot of open space. There are parts where it begins to fill, but most of the time it feels compressed. That gives a lot of the clicks and synths little wiggle room, which makes a lot of things jut kind of…not work. Synths often overwhelm nearly everything else in the mix, save Yorke’s whispers. While his voice is weak, it’s still louder than nearly everything else. While it’s nice to hear Yorke’s whisper every once in a while, there’s no change dynamically at all during all of his vocals. Even the more intense moments maintain an uncomfortable quiet.

Also, there aren’t any songs that really stick out. Sure, there are some albums that have a bunch of songs with equal quality. But this album’s consistent level of quality is relatively mediocre. None of the songs bring much to the table, and after a while each song sounds the same. The first half of the album is somewhat good, but the second half becomes a test of endurance. The songs are complex, but after a while you begin to see the patterns, and the wonder in that complexity begins to wane.

This album really just feels OK. The sonic ideas are somewhat interesting (if inconsistent), but after a while they just get monotonous. Songs just repeat the same patterns. The King of Limbs was a bit monotonous, but at least it kind of felt like the songs grew as they went along. Here, the plant dies in the first two minutes, and then it’s extended for two more verses of the same thing.

Other than Yorke and Producer Godrich, you can’t hear a lot of the efforts of the other band mates. The percussion is nice, but rarely heard. And I could only hear Flea on two or three songs. It really just feels like a Yorke solo album. One that’s really underwhelming.

However, the album isn’t unlistenable. Most of it is pleasant, and there isn’t much that’s terribly offensive. It’s just boring. All of these guys (Save Refosco, who I’ve never heard of before) have done better work before, and this album underwhelms when towered over by all the other projects that proceeded it.

Summary: It sounds nice enough, but Amok suffers from monotony and weak production.

Choice Cuts: Default

2.5/5

Stream Default and Judge Jury and Executioner below. AMOK is out Tuesday (3/26) on XL Recordings.