The release of Radiohead’s new album ‘The King Of Limbs’ has been brought forward to today (18 February) after the initial plan to launch the record via a big-screen broadcast in Tokyo was cancelled.
Here, then – a day earlier than expected – is our track by track guide to Radiohead’s eighth album.
continued…
Bloom
Opens with an echo-laden piano intro, before settling into an awkward, lop-sided rhythm, while an insistent bass line taps away like Morse code. Prettified by lush-sounding brass, it does that ‘Kid A’ thing of sounding organic and synthetic at the same time, dredging human feeling from seemingly forbidding material. That said, it’s still a bracingly avant-garde, almost formless affair. ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’ it is not.
Morning Mr Magpie
A thrumming guitar riff echoes ‘Unforgettable Fire’-era U2, while lyrically Thom’s back in the adversarial, finger-pointing mode familiar from ‘Amnesiac’ (“You’ve got some nerve coming here”). You feel such a dullard saying things like “innovative bass playing”, but it really is – counterpoints all over the place. Meanwhile, a pulsing siren noise in the background creates a mood of mounting panic, before the track fades out amid electronic static and bird song.
Little By Little
Boasts one of those chunky Radiohead riffs in the ‘I Might Be Wrong’ mould, underpinned by shuffling percussion reminiscent of ‘Reckoner’. Like ‘Bloom’, the rhythm seems designed to wrongfoot and unsettle you – at times it sounds like two songs running at the same time. Standout lyric? “I am such a tease and you’re such a flirt”. Grr, he’s a tiger! File alongside such other Sexy Thom moments as ‘Talk Show Host’ and his turn on PJ Harvey’s ‘This Mess We’re Win’.
Feral
Heavily treated vocals float in and out, while the different instruments – a bit of chainsaw bass here, a chime of keyboard there – sound like they exist in different universes entirely. In the run-up to ‘Kid A”s release Thom Yorke said he was bored of melody. Now it looks like he’s bored of traditional rock rhythms. Er, again.
Lotus Flower
What a subtle but powerful song this is, anchored by a sleekly propulsive bass line and capped with a truly beautiful, almost Prince-like falsetto vocal. Probably the only song on ‘The King Of Limbs’ with what could be described as an actual chorus, it seems to be about the magic of losing yourself in music and the senses: “Slowly we unfurl as lotus flowers…”
Radiohead, ‘Lotus Flower’ video – what do you think?
Codex
A relative of ‘Pyramid Song’ in more ways than one. Just as that song opened with an image of jumping into water, ‘Codex’ offers up an ambiguous vision of leaping “into a clear lake, no-one around.” The loping piano chords are similar too. Four minutes in, a string section enters to spine-tingling effect.
The song ends with more static and bird song – there seems to be an over-arching theme at work: the natural world in tension with modernity. Stately and mysterious, I suspect ‘Codex’ will be this album’s ‘Reckoner’, a standout track that grows in stature over time and becomes a fan favourite.
Give Up The Ghost
Acoustic guitar, more bird song… Jonny Greenwood doesn’t have much of a presence on this album, but his input on this track is magnificent, combining precise, spiralling arpeggios with Sigur Ros-style violin bow-type sound effects. Featuring richly layered vocals, this is a song to immerse yourself in. Bucolic but enigmatic, it’s unlike anything they’ve ever done before.
Separator
Another intriguing song that initially sounds shapeless but develops into a compelling, immersive groove. It also features the unlikely lyric: “I’m a fish now, underwater”. In common with most of the tracks on this album, there’s an enormous amount of reverb and echo on everything, making the lyrics indistinct and creating a vaguely unreal, dreamlike quality.
Verdict
The title ‘The King Of Limbs’ (which refers to an ancient tree in Wiltshire) convinced some people Radiohead might deliver a more organic-sounding, even pastoral album. But it’s not like that at all. Admittedly it’s crammed with images of the natural world – cool inviting lakes, flowers, fish, fruit – but it’s hardly a folky, Bon Iver-style affair.
Some even speculated that ‘The King Of Limbs’ might finally contain ‘lost’ anthems such as ‘Lift’. Fat chance, basically. This is an avant-garde record, and most definitely not a return to the crowd-pleasing songwriting of the ‘OK Computer’ era.
In a sense it’s a continuation of ‘In Rainbows’ in that Radiohead have now worked out how to be experimental without sacrificing the human element. As on that record, they display the knack of sounding deceptively machine-like. It sounds electronic even when it isn’t – but there’s always a pearl of soulfulness hidden within.
In crude terms, it’s probably more an ‘Amnesiac’ than an ‘In Rainbows’ or ‘Kid A’, a record to admire more than truly love. That said, we’ve only lived with it for a couple of hours. The image of an unfolding lotus flower is probably a good symbol for the album itself: no doubt it will unfurl more of its secrets over time.
Related Articles
1 user responded in this post
Radiohead – The King of Limbs: First review Guardian:
We’ve only heard it once, but Radiohead’s The King of Limbs hardly sounds like a band breaking new ground
Radiohead’s release schedule is not, you imagine, geared towards helping music critics. Minimal warnings, last-minute changes of plan and confusing announcements posted on Twitter in Japanese – does Thom Yorke not realise we have tight deadlines? The end result is a mad-rush by critics, bloggers and Tweet-freaks to be first to post their opinion on The King of Limbs’ eight tracks. Trouble is, Radiohead don’t make music designed for a hurried listen. A couple more plays down the line and the opinions you read here may be subject to change.
The King of Limbs begins in a manner that will no doubt make both Radiohead fans and critics smile – a looped piano riff reminiscent of Philip Glass is interrupted by crackly interference before disjointed rhythms and bleeps cascade over it. It’s an abstract, awkward introduction of the sort that has become so synonymous with the Oxford band that Vice magazine felt able to send them up this week with a spoof “first review” (sample line: “P£T£R P£PP£R is Thom Yorke’s deeply personal reaction to the events of the banking crisis, while Johnny Greenwood plays a timpani with a zither”).
Still, bands don’t become stadium-sized cult heroes if they’re nothing more than avant-garde soundscapers. And 30 seconds into Bloom, the track shuffles itself around and falls into place, haphazard noises settling down into a repetitive drum march as Thom Yorke announces himself.
There is much here that will please the ‘Head faithful, who will delight in the claustrophobic likes of Morning Mr Magpie and Little By Little. But you don’t have to be a diehard fan to see the worth in Codex, a beautiful melody brought into focus by the band’s decision to dispense of the usual trimmings in favour of piano and ghostlike effects. Closing track Separator – propelled by wandering bass and a bright guitar figure – ensures the album closes far more strongly than it opens.
These songs occupy an emotional terrain that Radiohead have mapped out as their own and – to their credit – others have failed to copy. What’s disappointing, however, is that the band – so often held up as musical mavericks operating in the mainstream – have failed to come up with anything that might surprise us this time. Early albums such as The Bends, OK Computer and Kid A carved out a radical new direction. Since then Radiohead have settled into a sound – abstract lyrics, jittery rhythms, echoes of leftfield electronica – meaning that this teeters on the brink of self-parody.
Their last album, 2007’s In Rainbows, was perhaps the best of Radiohead’s later releases, incorporating a more human (not to mention melodic) touch. Any hints that some light and shade was beginning to appear in the Radiohead canon have been largely snuffed out here, which is disappointing. Yes, you can still marvel that one of the world’s biggest bands are releasing music totally lacking in commercial concerns. And yes, they’re still leading the pack when it comes to releasing music in an exciting, innovative way. But whereas their business model is unusual, there’s a nagging feeling that The King of Limbs is more like business as usual.
————————————————–
The Telegraph
Radiohead: King of Limbs, album review
Neil McCormick reviews Radiohead’s new digital download album ‘King of Limbs’ track by track.
1. Bloom – An (almost literally) offbeat, understated, atmospheric opening, with stilted, jerky electronic percussion, a repetitive Glass-ian piano figure, swirling orchestral ambience over which floats Thom Yorke’s ethereal mumble. Simultaneously deeply weird and inviting, Bloom leaves me tingling with delicious anticipation. Which is, oddly enough, just about what you might expect.
2. Morning Mr Magpie – The lightness of the percussive drive seems to cross a kind of African marimba groove with an almost blues rock guitar chug, breaking down intermittently with flashes of south London dubstep ambience. “You’ve got some nerve coming here / you stole it all, give it back” sings Yorke, his sweet melodiousness giving the lie to the later accusation. “You took my melody.” Sinister and upbeat at the same time. They are (as ever) masters of musical dichotomy.
3. Little By Little – Tumbles down and spills out of the speakers, like an accidental collision of country music and free form jazz constructed around a climbing and falling bassline and more tingling toybox percussion. “I’m such a tease and you’re such a flirt” sings Yorke in a broken falsetto. Indeed. Even with reversed guitars and ghostly monk choruses humming deep in the background, there is a tenderness to this Radiohead album, so far, that suggests seduction rather than attack.
4. Feral – Instrumental that maintains the late night post-dubstep ambient intimacy blended with a light almost jazz-African percussive groove.
5. Lotus Flower – The single, and it’s a beauty. The bass lopes elegantly over a gentle, loose limbed drum pattern. Yorke’s singing is light and mellifluous, almost floating above the groove as he promises “I’ll set you free.” Spacey echoes lend a Pink Floyd trippiness, if you can imagine the Floyd remixed by Burial for a post clubbing chill out in an urban underground car park.
6. Codex – Sweet, sensitive piano, at a ballad pace, with the harmonic notes of horns and orchestra so distant as to barely intrude. Again, Yorke’s vocal is gentle and mellifluous, as he invites us to dive into clear waters. “No one gets hurt” he promises. Once Radiohead sounded like the last band standing after the apocalypse, but this has the lovely optimism and bold use of space as the most wide eyed future pop.
7. Give Up The Ghost – A campfire lullaby for the end of the world. Gently plucked acoustic guitars and a tremulous, distorted backing sample pleading “Don’t hurt me” like the faint spirit of a forgotten gospel singer echoing down the ages. Yorke bids us gather for a last stand, surrending himself into the arms of a lover. It’s a beauty, whirring and clicking in the musical half light, a ghost in the (OK) computer.
8. Seperator – Ending neither with a bang nor a whimper, Yorke and co carry us gently into that good night. The percussive flows is tip tap light, the minimalist bass carrying just the hint of a groove, while guitar notes fracture and multiply all around. Yorke sings “Wake me up” like a sleepy somnambulist. It’s a perfectly understated ending to Radiohead’s most mellifluous collection, not so much a chill out as an exhausted cigarette break in the eye of the hurricane, down time from a disaster. If Radiohead are still a rock band, then no one has told them. This is something else entirely. The sound of the future calling.
Rispondi
Leave A Reply