Thom Yorke, The Eraser (XL Recordings)
I adore electronics. 
When I'm shopping for a new life-enhancing device if there's a choice between an electronic gadget and a nonelectronic one I always go electronic.  Think about it.  Which do you prefer:  An abacus or a calculator?  A sundial or a wristwatch?  Music played by people with instruments or electronic music?  Why, I can no more imagine a world without e-music than I can a world without pet psychiatrists and Beluga caviar.  How would we survive? 
Thanks to Thom Yorke, we don't have to.  Yorke keeps the music electronic - a sure sign of human progress - helping us inch ever closer to an era free of gratuitous human contact.  Yorke's debut record, The Eraser (XL Recordings), though it lacks the other four fifths of Radiohead, sounds a lot like Radiohead - but without all those pesky instruments and the warm-blooded creatures who play them.  Yorke prefers his beats synthetic and his instrumentals emanating from a black box covered in dials and blinking lights.  These are sounds not found in the wild and dangerous forests of rock.  These sterile beats are the sublime sound of safety. 
If his vocals are any indication, Yorke has found bliss in this orderly electronic universe.  Despite his melancholy lyrics, Yorke's smooth and gorgeous singing betrays a sort of sedated satisfaction.  Perhaps he has found peace amid his complicated music machines.  Yorke has banished the humans, disinfected the joint, and is doing things his way - the electronic way.             
Go ahead, Mr. Yorke.  Electrify the world.  But what happens when the power goes out?  Drummers keep on drumming; guitarists go acoustic; the civilized world lights emergency candles, and Yorke's beeping, blipping gadgetry withers and dies.
What we're left with then is the best we'll ever be left with: blood, sweat, pounding hearts, tension, conflict, and, occasionally, bliss.  Being human is a messy affair, and this album is just too, too tidy. â€" Jennifer Boutilier