'We are all doomed', told Stanley Donwood when he was signing me a card at his Subliminal Projects’ exhibit a few months ago. Donwood is the graphic artist who is responsible for all Radiohead’s album and poster art, and if you have ever looked at the cover of Thom Yorke’s ‘The Eraser’, you will recognize Donwood’s announcing-the-apocalypse-in-black-and-white peculiar style at work again for this new cover.
But it’s no wonder, ‘Judge, Jury and Executioner’, the second track released off Atoms For Peace’s upcoming album ‘Amok’ (available on February 26th), could come straight from Yorke’s ‘The Eraser’. With its percussive and abstract atmosphere, Yorke’s lamenting falsetto, warm-going-desperate background wordless vocal chorus, the song builds a very familiar ambiance à la Radiohead, but without any crescendo or catharsis, just staying afloat with a melancholic vibe stuck between electronics and acoustic guitars… It’s not bad, but with such a super cast – Thom Yorke, Nigel Godrich, Joey Waronker, Mauro Refosco and Flea – weren’t we entitled to ask for more than just this?
Since the title of the song ‘Judge, Jury, Executioner’ is also an alternate name for Radiohead’s song ‘Myxomatosis’, but also the title of an episode of the post-apocalyptic horror TV series ‘The Walking Dead’, we are back to the beginning: we are all doomed.