So Radiohead sort of thrust their new album upon the world with little notice, leaving websites, magazines, and publications of all kinds wondering how the hell they were going to bother reviewing something that the rest of the world was hearing at the same time they were. The answer is apparently to listen to it track by track and write their thoughts, hoping that their inherent journalistic greatness would make their first impressions more interesting than that of the average Radiohead-loving dork. Well, let's put that to the test with my own version of it!
Context: I have not bothered listening to live versions, bootlegs, etc., of any of these songs except one. These are all 100% fresh to me, with one exception, which you'll read about later. And away we go...
In Rainbows:
"15 Step" - The couple track-by-track things I started reading, I stopped after the first song, so I know that the general consensus of this song is that it's apparently the funkiest thing Radiohead has ever done... except I can't ever recall hearing a funky song that was in a 5/4 meter.
"Bodysnatchers" - Opening melody reminiscent of "Palo Alto." Neat little "National Anthem" style instrumental break. Are Radiohead at that point in their career where all their songs can be traced back to one of their earlier albums? Not really, as the latter half of the song shows. Jonny Greenwood has one of the most recognizable guitar tones in the world, by the way. You can tell it's him with a single note. Is this mixed weird or are my speakers funky or something? The guitars completely drown out the vocals at times. Possibly intentional and/or mp3 goofies.
"Nude" - Holy shit! I remember this song! It's so old that it's since passed into being "part of my childhood." Went I went on my very first internet song downloading binge, sometime in 1999, it included something like three live bootlegs of this song. I'm trying to think of bad songs they should have booted off of the three albums they've released since then to include this one (four if you include Ok Computer, and apparently it's been around that long), but all I can come up with is "Pulk/Pull" and "Hunting Bears," and whatever that Eno rip-off was from Kid A. Anyway, it wasn't worth a nine year wait to hear the studio version, but it's still gorgeous. "You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking" still sounds really ominous coming from Thom Yorke. If anybody reading this is a good enough friend of mine to have the Severn EP that we made, skip to the last song to hear that ending that I totally ripped from "Nude."
"Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" - Back to the uptempo rock, sort of. Opening sounds like The Sea and Cake. I'm wondering if this is going to be a two-part song, as suggested by the title. Me just now: "3:06 must be the begnning of the second part... never mind, he's singing 'weird fiiiiishes.'" I guess it is a two-parter, but they're both really similar. It's more like a coda than anything else. Certainly will seem more obvious with repeated listens.
"All I Need" - I don't really have much to say about this one. I have no idea if those drums are looped or just really robotically played. Oh wait, open hi-hat! Phil Selway, ladies and gentleman! This song turns really beautiful about 3/4 of the way through. Now Phil's crashing those cymbals, as if to say "I AIN'T NO MACHINE, FUCKA!" Thom Yorke's voice is so expressive that it imbues the most inane crap with beauty and intensity. I have no clue what he's singing there and it doesn't matter.
"Faust Arp" - This one gave some website I was reading the chance to namecheck both the fourth-most famous 70s krautrock band AND Pete Townsend's favorite synthesizer with its title. Holy crap, this is also gorgeous. Excellent string arrangement. Maybe a reminder that at their core, Radiohead are good pop songwriters. Anybody with any of their 90s work knows that, but again, there's no real equivalent to this in their backcatalog. If there's a theme I'm getting so far, it's that they're no longer pushing the limits of pop music (which they haven't done since 2001 anyway) but they are pushing their own, which is about as much as you can ask for a band at this point in their career.
"Reckoner" - This is another relatively old one, I think, because I recognize the song title, but it must have come out after the point where I stopped actively seeking bootlegs of new Radiohead material, sometime after Hail to the Thief. This one sounds the most Thief-like so far. Whoa! Another great string arrangement. Jonny may be learning from his film-scoring experiences.
"House of Cards" - Now there's a well-recorded guitar part. It sounds like somebody is playing it in my room. Holy hell that is a shitton of reverb on Thom's voice. When the music is not immediately compelling, I'm going to keep writing about production aspects. Generic Slowdive echo-ey and reverb-y guitar part makes an appearance.
"Jigsaw Falling Into Place" - Opening: "2+2=5" +"Go to Sleep" + "There There." Or something like that. Oh man, this is building into something, that's for sure. Waiting for freakout... turns out to be more of a gradual escalation (I was hoping for something more along the lines of "YOU HAVE NOT BEEN PAYING ATTEEEENTION!"). Jonny still loves his Ondes Martenot. Did Thom just sing "I'm not a faggot"?
"Videotape" - Now here are some fellas who know their way around a repetitive loop-like musical phrase. This is one of those songs where I started out bored and ended up hypnotized. Interesting percussion too.
Well, there you go. Overall, I'd say this is much more sedated than anything they've ever done. I remember pretty distinctly a few "HOLY GOD HOW IS THIS BAND SO AMAZING" moments from every album prior to this one (well, Pablo Honey less so), but those are lacking here. It's all interesting to some degree, but not immediately compelling all the time. It may well be a grower. We'll see.
Coming up next, in five minutes: Tom liveblogs The Fiery Furnaces' Widow City! Not really.
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