Blindfold test: The new Coldplay album? Keane perhaps? No! Wait! Are these the lost Thom Yorke solo demos everyone was buzzing about a few years back? Nope, but it sure sounds like all of the above. Most of the elements required for an enjoyable post-Brit-pop shoe-gazing orgasm are in abundance on the seductively somnambulant Wide Awake. The pleasantly self-indulgent lyrics overflowing with adolescent angst, the moderate yet effective orchestral backdrop, the soaring falsetto vocals bolstering deeply personal revelations, the overt references to death and suicide, the sweeping dynamic changes in tempo and timbre, and the obligatory oblique instrumental interludes are made-to-order in all ten anthemic mini-operas. No need to go into a track-by track descriptive. Sometimes a Xerox copy is just as good as the original. In Canon's case, who can tell?
~ Tom Semioli
Buy Album from CD Universe
