Two years ago, Radiohead got knocked for a loop when a song of their own making became an inadvertent, out-of-left-field pop hit. The song was "Creep," a masterstroke of self-denigration coupled to a killer tension/release dynamic. Sure, any new band would be happy to have a hit, but it upset Radiohead's equilibrium; they were, and remain, a young band, perhaps not fully formed, and never intended to be the next big thing.

Radiohead, which played to a sold-out crowd at the Paradise Friday night, is back with their second album, "The Bends." It is, for better or for worse, "Creep"-free. It's also pretty, moody and melancholic, Beatle-esque in a minor way with noisiness lurking around many a corner. Call it Phase Two.

Guitarist Ed O'Brien was so blunt as to put it this way after their Friday show: "As far as I'm concerned, we wanted to wipe our slate clean. We were known as the 'Creep' band. We weren't prepared for it to go ballistic. We couldn't 'follow it up' and we were really painful victims of record company mistakes. 'Creep' went Top 40; it got us into the realm of Bon Jovi. I mean, I'd love us to do that eventually, but we wanted to get a hardcore following first. Our ideal in this Radiohead thing is to get people to trust us. I did that with the Smiths, with Echo and the Bunnymen, with R. E. M. Peter Buck of R. E. M. said for 18 months they were known as that 'Radio Free Europe' band and said Mike Mills also of R.E.M. said to tell us, if Radiohead is down in the dumps, 'You've got songs, don't worry about it.' "

This is not to say they didn't play "Creep" or give it a showcase slot. They put it at the end of the regular set, and singer Thom Yorke pulled out all the agonizing stops - "I don't belong here . . . You're so expletive special!/And I'm a creep" - and the band blasted. The guitarists - and Radiohead employs three of 'em, O'Brien, Yorke and Jonny Greenwood - stuttered and roared.

Radiohead started with the title track of "The Bends," full of stops, starts and slides, and Yorke established his voice as one in the English glam tradition of Ian Hunter and David Bowie, keeping company today with Oasis and Suede. That is, a touch of melodrama and affectation are par for the course. The frequent frustration was there, too: Yorke's vocals were often swept under the loud guitar mix. This may present more than just a stage problem for Radiohead. After the set, a clearly shaken Yorke said, "I'm panicky . . . I can't hear anything now. I'm going deaf." He was battling an ear infection, and he said he was the only band member not to wear earplugs. "It's very difficult to sing with plugs," he said, noting that traditional earplugs knock out the high frequencies. He was intent upon looking into newly designed plugs that filter out highs and lows more equally.

For most of the 70-minute set, Radiohead concocted a satisfying blare, with Yorke issuing despairing thoughts like "the best thing you've ever had has gone away" and "I'm better off dead" and "it wears me down." They took a welcome acoustic-oriented mid-set diversion, came back with charge, and closed with encores that echoed the Smiths' chime and Bowie's "Space Oddity." Creatively satisfying and crowd-pleasing, Yorke won additional points for explaining to the crowd the absurdity of moshing, especially to slow songs, and whacking one slow-learning stage diver off the stage with his guitar.