Chile's new Rock & Pop magazine reviews Pablo Honey

Pablo Honey gets a very good review in the first issue of Rock & Pop, a new Chilean monthly published through the radio station Radio Cooperativa. The reviewer, who signs as FM, starts in a car. A driver alone on the road who hears “Creep” on the radio, FM writes, has two choices, to pull onto the hard shoulder and turn it up or to accelerate into the first lorry coming the other way.

The album can't be discussed without the single, in FM's view. “Creep” is to Radiohead what “Every Breath You Take” was to the Police, an emblem that cuts both ways: a debut single that became a near-classic and left the band a bar that will be hard to clear.

Beyond it, FM picks out “Stop Whispering”, with Yorke's voice at moments recalling Bono, which the review counts as high praise, and “Thinking About You”, a nostalgic ballad. The rest is even, but doesn't reach those songs or help confirm the originality of the band's sound.

The verdict is that five Englishmen from Oxford have made a very good record, enough to rank them above anything else England has sent lately, and that with “Creep” they have written themselves into the history of great rock songs. FM will be waiting for the second album with eyes open.