The King of Limbs
Released 18th February 2011 on XL Records
Radiohead are becoming renowned for their unconventional way of releasing music, their last album 'In Rainbows' was released on a 'pay what you want' basis, and in the early stages of recording for this album they released the song 'These Are My Twisted Words' for free with DIY artwork.
The King of Limbs' was announced only last week as having a February 19th release date, only for people to wake up on the 18th and find the full thing available for download.
Released 4 years later and named after a thousand year old Oak Tree near the recording studio where they recorded the critically acclaimed 'In Rainbows', can 'The King of Limbs' live up to it?
Opener 'Bloom' starts off well with a crackling piano melody, but soon ends up losing it and sounding a bit muddled up, the second song 'Morning Mr Magpie' does little to remedy this lacklustre start, fortunately third song 'Little by Little' is something of a gem which feels much more like 'In Rainbows' territory, the slow soft voice of Thom Yorke singing "Little by Little" over a fast paced percussion background. Fourth song 'Feral' again feels like an unorganised string of ideas meshed together with very little in the way of melody.
Luckily, at this half-way stage the album starts to turn around into a more focused effort. Fifth song, and first single 'Lotus Flower' is a more traditionally structured slow burner which adds layers of electronic and percussion rhythm over Yorkes soft vocals. Song six, 'Codex' is undoubtedly the best song in this collection, a soft piano melody and strings carry the music while Yorke sings "Jump off the end / Into a clear lake / No one around", the sense of sadness and the build up in the instruments around it can best be compared to 'All I Need' from In Rainbows.
Seventh song 'Give Up The Ghost' starts with bird song, and continues in an acoustic like manner throughout, some eerie atmospheric keyboard noises compliment the acoustic guitar and restrained use of percussion.
Eighth and final song 'Separator' is the perfect way to close this album (and has spurned a whole host of conspiracy theories due to the lyrics "If you think this is over then you're wrong"), it's the most uplifting song on the album and showcases Radiohead at their best.
This album is a difficult one to summarise, it's obviously a departure from the faster paced 'In Rainbows' into a body of work that is slower and much more atmospheric, this itself may be the problem with it, on first listen, to be totally honest I wasn't too impressed, but the more I've listened the more I've enjoyed it. The decision to move the guitar based sounds into the background and make the electronic atmospheric sounds more prominent could put off some Radiohead fans and is unlikely to win any others over.
All in all this album is a slow starter which improves as you listen through it, and although it's obviously no OK Computer, is still a great body of work which most fans will love. To me it feels like a slower more atmospheric sibling to In Rainbows, and given that In Rainbows is my seconds favourite album that is no bad thing.
Check Out:
Little by Little
Lotus Flower
Codex
Separator
Avoid:
Bloom
Morning Mr Magpie
No comments:
Post a Comment