"So? Have you listened to the new Radiohead album? What do you think about it?"
I've been listening to Radiohead since I first heard Ok Computer back in the 90's, enjoying every music phase they've had since and always looking forward to the next record release. That's because these guys know how to surprise you and I've always found it to be a very good surprise. Their shift to an intelligent use of electronics on Kid A and Amnesiac was revolutionary for a rock band in those years, bringing that to a mainstream public tired of the same guitar-base-drums-synths bands. They combined these electronics with a more clean pop-rock like approach on Hail to the thief, and improved all that in their In Rainbows masterpiece. Some hints to what would follow where given on their download track These are my twisted words, released a year and half before the now available The King of Limbs, where a fast/uneven drumming is haloed by guitar arpeggios/riffs and phantasmagoric singing and synths.
The new album is, as usual, extremely well produced. It's also more dubstep oriented (a genre that is becoming very popular nowadays) but keeping some similarities with old Radiohead recordings. I had to listen to it several times until It grew on me, and now I think it's a wonderful record. It lacks of a guitar-based song like on previous albums (like Bodysnatchers, Myxomatosis...) but, well, If I want that I listen to the old recordings and that's all. This gives me something new, and I like it!
In Bloom, the first track from The King of Limbs, a ghostly piano gives start to some quite shamanic loops and drumming. A great bass track keeps us in trance, until the 'shaman' finally ask us to "Open our mouths wide". A brass section is then introduced, in what seems a call for us to follow the ritual and 'bloom' with it.
Follows up Morning Mr. Magpie, an old track that was first introduced in a Radiohead TV webcast in december 2002. Here a heavy pressed up guitar riff gives the song both rhythm pattern and melody. This, added to Thom's rasping vocals, gives the needed background to the fierce lyrics despising Mr. Magpie for doing something really bad and then getting what he deserves (note the guitar and bass sections around minute 2 and the screaming, clearly showing his agony).
Little by little seems a song coming out of a mix of the Hail to the Thief's "Where I end and you begin" with In Rainbow's "Reckoner". The predominance of bass and guitar with a reverberated and saturated kind of tambourine, gives a feeling of déjà vu. It was definitely the first track of the album I could easily relate with some old Radiohead's music, with an easy to follow melody and well played arpeggios.
A notable dubstep influence can be heard in Feral, with its snare drums beat pattern and bassline drops. The name of the song might come from the kind of aerial synth that gives the melodic line. The intangible cut out words (possibly created with the Kaoss Pad) fly around giving the feeling of a magical creature asking for you to dance.
The first promotional track, Lotus Flower (with a video that shows Thom dancing with more style than what he does live), keeps the dubstep dancing mood, but this time with lyrics and a chorus. Thom's falsetto voice seems fragile, love demanding, giving a 'cozy' like feeling to the track. That's maybe why at the end he tell us "Listen to your heart".
After all this up beat tracks, Radiohead ask us to sit down and dwell upon our lives with Codex. This slow piano driven track is simple and beautifully sung. The intimate feeling is powered up when a brass arrangement comes in. It makes us remember Amnesiac's "Pyramid Song" and Com Lag's "Fog (again) (live)". The guys have experience in what they created here, and one can feel it.
The feeling of intimacy is kept for Give Up The Ghost, built up of voice loops ("Don't haunt me/In your arms") and an acoustic guitar. A beautiful warm melody that is slowly developed, surrounded by bird noises. Jonny's e-guitar picks come in, making it complete and getting us into the garden of Eden.
Last track, Separator, brings the dubstep back in with a repeated drum pattern and great bassline. Thom's ethereal voice seems like "falling out of bed from a long weary dream". In the middle of the song some amazing guitar arpeggios appear and invite us to keep on dreaming, even if all we want is to "wake up". The song is almost over and it seems we finally got into paradise.
