Guitarist Ed O’Brien is the latest Radiohead member to release solo music – and he’s maintained the excellent high standards of his bandmates **** Four stars
Trying to second guess Radiohead is, of course, an utterly futile exercise. As mercurial as they are mesmerising, the Oxford five-piece have spent almost three decades confounding people’s expectations – invariably with thrilling results.
You might say that those same principles also apply to the band’s respective solo careers. Frontman Thom Yorke has certainly been the most active, producing three albums of wonderfully glitchy electronica and, in addition, forming the supergroup Atoms For Peace. Elsewhere, the band’s virtuoso guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, has worked on film soundtracks (most notably on the 2007 film There Will Be Blood), while drummer Phil Selway has recorded two albums of synth-infused folk songs. Radiohead’s members, even when they’re not doing their days jobs, are clearly still driven by a restless appetite for sonic adventure.
Which brings us neatly to the next Radiohead member to pursue a solo career: Mr Ed O’Brien. Renowned for his powerful stage presence, intricate guitar playing and soulful backing vocals, it’s somewhat surprising that O’Brien has waited so long to embark on a solo career. There is, of course, a very simple reason for this: O’Brien’s much-renowned humility. Speaking recently about his first solo record, he admitted: “The last thing the world needs is a shit album by me.”
Rest assured: Ed O’Brien – working under the moniker EOB – has certainly not made a “shit album”. Rather, in keeping with his bandmates’ high-quality control, the 52-year-old has crafted a first solo record awash with glorious invention. Most importantly, his debut LP, Earth, pulls off that rare trick of combining unfettered experimentalism with – something one doesn’t always associate with Radiohead – an unbridled sense of fun.
O’Brien’s new-found energy can be traced back to Brazil, the place where he and his family moved to for a few months in 2012. Inspired by the South American country’s sense of colour and carnival, O’Brien enjoyed a real burst of creativity – resulting in this, a hypnotic, eclectic collection of songs which reward with deep and repeated listening.
Recent single, the aptly-titled ‘Brasil’, is the perfect example of Ed O’Brien’s solo modus operandi. A nine-minute shapeshifting odyssey, it slowly builds from acoustic-driven mood piece into euphoric house epic – quiet resignation exploding into bright ecstasy. Seamlessly held together with sharp, melodic hooks and O’Brien’s mournful delivery, it’s just the kind of urging, hopeful anthem we need right now in the middle of a global pandemic.
Album highlight ‘Shangri-La’ continues that optimistic theme, a funky, skittering electro-rock tune which wouldn’t sound too out of place on a Gorillaz album. Elsewhere, the influence of Achtung Baby-era U2 is writ large upon the groove-laden ‘Olympik’, while ‘Mass’, inspired by the 2010 NASA documentary film Hubble, is a swirling, celestial slice of widescreen prog-psychedelia. Meanwhile, Radiohead fans will surely delight at ‘Banksters’, a vigorous electronic assault in which O’Brien laments the avarice of financial institutions – it’s surely the closest thing here to his work with Thom Yorke and co.
There’s a grandness, a certain bombast to these songs, but the way in which O’Brien delivers them is never anything less than intimate. Nowhere is this more apparent than on album closer ‘Cloak Of The Night’, a tender, finger-picked folk lament featuring a magnificent vocal turn from Mercury Prize nominee Laura Marling.
Joyous, uplifting and full of sonic intricacies, Earth, according to Ed O’Brien, could be the first part of an ambitious album trilogy. He’s already set a very high bar with this first instalment – we can’t wait to see where he takes us next.
