Thom Yorke – Tomorrow's Modern Boxes: our first thoughts

Tim Jonze: ‘Refinement rather than radical overhaul’

For someone considered to be constantly at the vanguard of inventive popular music, Thom Yorke’s music often sounds, to these ears, to be somewhat … uninventive? No, that’s unfair: Yorke has forged an entirely original sound over the last decade and a half with Radiohead, Atoms For Peace and his solo work. Maybe unsurprising is the better word: when you hear there’s going to be a new Thom Yorke album, you can take a pretty decent guess at what it will sound like, way before you’ve mastered whatever annoying technology is required to actually hear the damn thing. Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is no different in this respect, but familiarity does not come at the expense of standout moments. A Brain In The Bottle is more than just a song created using a Radiohead title generator: instead, it highlights the bizarre raw ingredients Yorke sees fit to conjure up songs with – unsteady bass wobbles up, shards of piercing synth, a tricksy drum loop. The Mother Lode is especially thrilling, because for all its skittering drums and throbbing piano sounds, it boasts a melody that evolves beautifully with each passing bar. It’s early days, of course, but it already sounds like one of Yorke’s most masterful compositions. No doubt the devotees will love Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes – it’s just that, on a personal note, I long to hear something startlingly different from Thom Yorke, a radical overhaul rather than a refinement.

Harriet Gibsone: ‘Reinforcing his affiliation with the murky worlds of electronic music’

For diehard Radiohead-ideologues, shaking off the familiar jab of anxiety that imposes itself is always the first hurdle to overcome when a new Yorke fronted album arrives. Next: the doomish ache of expectancy. After the first few listens a fraught verdict surmises that 50% of the new album is fantastic; The Mother Lode feels like new territory for Yorke – if not only for the curious little jazz scat interlude – while Guess Again! is the fidgety cousin of Down Is The New Up and Nose Grows Some provides a brief human heartbeat from the sometimes robotically enhanced Yorke, his vocals brought to the fore behind a complex, creeping melody; as album endings go, it’s as taunting as you’d expect from a man who releases albums on a lazy Friday afternoon via BitTorrent bundle. The other half is like an extension of Amok (sans that Flea-driven Fela Kuti funk) as opposed to The Eraser – after all, too much technological advancement has happened in the intervening years for the voraciously experimental Yorke to create something comparable to a 2006 release. On Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, Yorke’s not replicating previously trodden ground, merely reinforcing his affiliation with the murky worlds of experimental electronic music - and importantly, the fact that he still couldn’t care less about guitars.

Samuel Gibbs: ‘Blazing a trail with BitTorrent bundles ... but less user-friendly’

Thom Yorke is blazing a brave new trail with BitTorrent bundles – the first album to be sold rather than given away through the service. But while the benefits for artists and publishers are obvious, with lower distribution costs and a direct connection to the fans cutting out the middleman, for the music listeners it’s a mixed bag. Music download services like iTunes, Google Play Music and Amazon are established and easy to use, while streaming services are ever more popular. Downloading music via BitTorrent bundles is a much less user-friendly experience requiring special software, a computer and a level of tech savvy that many mainstream music consumers may not have. Once they have the files they are as easy to use as any MP3, but getting them is not as simple as hitting a button. There are benefits for some listeners: you don’t need an account with Amazon, Apple or Google to download the album and a lower distribution cost for the artist could mean cheaper music. Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes costs $6, which costs less than most new music, but whether that is enough to convince music listeners that BitTorrent is the way forward is debatable.

Tshepo Mokoena: ‘The return of the real king of sad boys’

Before Yung Lean and Ryan Hemsworth we had Thom Yorke, the real king of sad boys. Numerous producers have aped the ticks and vibrating swells of his music in the eight years since he released The Eraser, so it feels great to have him back. Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes recalls the textures of his debut’s melancholy, hitting like an emotive punch to the gut that makes you want to cry – in a good way. On a first listen, the album swoops from piano-led slow jams to thudding electronica. Interference’s wall of sound, humming beneath and overpowering Yorke’s simple vocal line, will surely soundtrack the break-up tears of young singletons for the rest of the year. Yorke intimately coos on-mic on Truth Ray and A Brain in a Bottle, and if DJs aren’t dropping the Mother Lode into the ends of their sets by Saturday night, they’re doing it wrong. Welcome back, Yorke.

Kate Hutchinson: ‘Ticks tomorrow’s modern boxes, and squishes them into new shapes’

If much of modern electronic music is like Ikea flat-pack furniture with the same nuts and bolts and only common sense needed to put it together then Thom Yorke’s is like one of those hand-carved tree-trunk stools – intricate and densely layered, something new to discover with every listen. There’s frenetic, bass-driven 2-step on The Mother Lode, which could easily be the result of watching a load of Machinedrum and Jamie xx Boiler Room sets, lazed-out LA beat scene vibes on Truth Ray – its mournful lyrics (the truth) offset by a gorgeously warm and syrupy synth sound (the rays) – and the wonky ambience of piano-and-static instrumental Pink Section, much of which wouldn’t sound out of place on a Hyperdub compilation. But what sets this record apart, as always, is Yorke’s distinctive and elastic falsetto, ranging from feathery and ethereal to reedy and soulful, and his ability to inject whatever genre he fancies with his very specific Yorkeness. Take, for example, the final techno banger, There Is No Ice (For My Drink), which manages to sound beautiful even though there’s a blithering Berghain-at-11am vocal sample and the deepest drum beat you’re likely to hear this year, all of which makes you wish you were hugging the bassbins and wittering about the lack of cold beverages yourself. It may tick tomorrow’s modern boxes but it flattens them down and squishes them into new shapes, too.

Peter Beech ‘A meagre offering from a man who once brought us melodic majesty’

On first listen, this is a characteristic mixture of the compelling, the disconcerting and the dull. The usual Yorke solo-career suspects are here: zombie-shuffle rhythms and lonely, meandering piano lines, as if played on an abandoned set of ivories in a haunted house. First track A Brain in a Bottle has him crooning over a warped bass and showing off a synth so distorted it sounds like a seagull’s call. It’s catchy, though. The same can’t be said for Guess Again!, which spends too long plodding the barren digital landscape Yorke has clearly decided he wants to make his own. The Mother Lode lives up to its title at six minutes long, though doesn’t build much or go anywhere in terms of dynamics. Things don’t really pick up again until There Is No Ice (For My Drink), propelled by a muffled thump like a house night heard from the smoking area – and that’s when we see a dash of Yorke’s genius, as he garnishes the track with a wordless vocal refrain that lifts it from the gurning grime of the club floor to the heights of an ecstasy epiphany. You wonder who, or actually when, this music is for: it’s too disjointed to dance to, and doesn’t seem rich enough to reward repeated solo listening. The gorgeous final track leads things some way towards redemption: a melody of real celestial warmth rises above Yorke’s congregation of atmospheric clicks and pops. I don’t know if it’s enough. Albums sometimes take a while to work their way into your subconscious, but I can’t help being a bit disappointed: Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes seems a meagre, downbeat offering from a man who brought us the melodic majesty of Let Down and the muttering, murderous menace of Knives Out. Underwhelming.