Thom Yorke's slurry enunciation and the plaintive acoustic strum evoke a sad little drunk trying to provoke a fight he knows he can't win. The band should be applauded for following its own muse, even if that means more than one layer of pretense. But you get the sense that Radiohead, which performs at Suffolk Downs on Aug. 14, didn't really intend it to be. If you lost Radiohead's frequency when the computers started going haywire in 1997, chances are you discovered Scottish band Travis in 1999.
Melancholy vibes lend a bittersweetness to many of the tracks.