A review of "Default" by Atoms For Peace

Sometimes, Thom Yorke's otherworldly keening can serve to perfectly convey human emotion and, sometimes, it can annoy the piss out of me; "Default" is 100% the former.

I haven't heard Yorke use his voice this effectively in years; so much regret...
The first words we hear him speak are "It slipped my mind/and for a time/I felt completely free", but you don't start a song like that unless things are about to go downhill, fast, and they do.
The overall tone of "Default" is regret, unfathomable regret, but a resigned regret ("guess that's it/I've made my bed/now I lie in it"), poor choices were made, but he's learning to deal with them and be at peace with his decisions and move on, and it's almost believable until, towards the end, the dam breaks and Yorke sings, almost under his breathe, as an afterthought, "and it's eating me up" over and over. There's more emotion and expression and feeling in that quiet aside than some artists could ever hope to muster with their most tortured, throat-rending scream.
At that point, one might begin to think that the ever-present rattling noises they've been hearing this whole time perhaps betray his true self, the one his detached, disconnected voice has been trying to cover up, the one who's being crushed and killed by this regret.
While still admitting that "it's eating me up", he begins to say, "if I get free of these snares..." and then trails off, leaving the listener to ask: then what? You get free of these snares (that you clearly set for yourself), then what? Will you change? Will you start over? Or will you do all this over again?
Is that last statement, "if I get free of these snares...", one of hope or of fear?

And all of the above happens amidst a warm yet somewhat uncomfortable sonic landscape, the highlight of which is the buzzy, unstable synth line that comes sweeping in with the chorus. There's not one sound on this entire track that sounds correct, clean; everything has something, some tiny detail wrong with it: a stutter, a hum, a warble, and it reflects the mood and lyrics perfectly.

There's something about the slightly menacing toneless electronic blips that pervade this track that make me want Trent Reznor and Thom Yorke to collaborate on something*, a triple-album resulting in a world tour preferably, but I'd settle for one song. These two have been innovators in their field** for, literally, decades and have yet to really cross paths. Now that Yorke is taking a break from Radiohead and Reznor is taking a break from Nine Inch Nails...well, one can yearn, can't one?
*sigh*

The full Atoms For Peace album is set for release in early 2013, and, if "Default" is to be any indication, it's probably going to be pretty amazing.

Go to http://atomsforpeace.info to hear "Default" now.





* That would be the field of amazing, progressive sonic creation.