Eight months after the release of Kid A, Radiohead are back with even more musical abnormalities.

"After years of waiting, nothing came." The opening line of Radiohead's latest musical offering certainly doesn't reflect their recent work. It was a full three years between the release of their hit album O.K. Computer and last year's Kid A, the sister disc to this month's Amnesiac. Kid A provided Radiohead listeners with a range of oddly composed and performed music, hardly what fans were expecting from the moody British alt-rockers. Often ethereal and mostly electronic, Kid A was as different from their previous three albums as a horse-drawn cart is from a space shuttle. Amnesiac, which was recorded during the same time period as Kid A, proves to be as dissimilar from its sibling as from everything else Radiohead has ever done.

Amnesiac has the same general "tonal colors" as Kid A, but a bit warmer, with more life, more feeling. Songs such as "I Might Be Wrong" and "Knives Out" have a distinctly normal feel about them, not experimental or wacky in any way. Using standard guitar, bass, and drum riffs, these songs might just as well have appeared on O.K. Computer. "Dollars & Cents" might fit this list if it weren't for the unusual vocals and phrasing that distinguish it from the other tracks on Amnesiac. "You And Whose Army" and "Pyramid Song," the album's first single, begin to show major differences in style, both featuring slow, melting, rich sound that perfectly matches lead singer Thom Yorke's lilting, almost whiny falsetto. But these songs are the only ones you might expect out of Radiohead. Radically different, and more experiment than expression, "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" (no that's not a typo) is a piece composed of heavy programming and a heavily modified vocal track which is simply reading off types of doors.

The melodic "Like Spinning Plates" features a track laden with reversed sound reminiscent of portions of The Beatles' "Revolution 9" overlaid with some dramatic film score and a chorus of angels. "Hunting Bears" is a disturbing description of a landscape beyond anything we know. As the album's only purely instrumental track, it already has distinction, but the repetitive nature of the overdriven guitar track make it an entity unto itself. The final track on the album, "Life In A Glasshouse," is so jarringly different from the rest of the album that one almost forgets that it is part of it. The opening strains are similar to the feel of Yorke's collaboration on the song "Rabbit In Your Headlights," but soon listeners may recall the freejazz horns of Kid A's "The National Anthem" as the song decomposes into some twisted version of a Dixie song gone weird. Amnesiac also features a version (not a remix) of the song "Morning Bell," which appeared first on Kid A. This ghostly track is alternately haunting with airy mournful synth and cheery and uplifting with chimes and bells. Listeners of both albums are sure to have an argument about one version or another; they are so different that they might as well be different songs entirely, having only the lyrics to tie them together.

While Amnesiac is an extremely listenable album, and even having a few songs that might be claimed as radio singles, it doesn't show the kind of raw progress that was evident in Kid A. When the first album of these sessions came out, it dazzled us as a sonic masterpiece that became clear only when listened to as a single piece. Amnesiac on the other hand can be dissected; it is subtler than its sister. Perhaps not quite as strong, it is still a powerful work that lets us know that Radiohead are not finished. "Of course [they'd] like to sit around and chat," if you're willing to sit around and listen.