Legendary U.K. rockers Radiohead are back with their first studio release in 3 years and their eighth studio album overall, The King of Limbs. The follow up to 2008's masterful In Rainbows finds the group experimenting in a more fragmented fashion that feels like it's only one part of a bigger album to come in spurts sometime down the road.
The album starts off with "Bloom" an electronic tinged, eerie effort that finds lead singer Thom Yorke and Co. experimenting in the way we always expected them to after listening to them all these years. "Morning Mr. Magpie" is an upbeat, consistent effort that adds a little bit of a melodic punch here with Thom's vocals allowing the song to have a long shelf life ahead of it. "Little By Little" is an aural, melodic delight with mystical instrumentation and wonderful vocal syncopation that allow this song to stand out among all the rest on the disc.
The disc's second half begins with my favorite song off the album and the disc's first single, "Lotus Flower". The song is pure, vintage Radiohead with Thom's beautiful vocals echoing throughout the whole song, causing the vibrations to shake the foundation of the song to its very core, and revealing it to be a wonderfully rich composition both melodically and sonically. "Codex" is a more somber, emotionally revealing affair that is the emotional climax of the album with strong horn sounds emanating omnipresently right in front of you that give you a first hand account of what kind of mood you can expect the song to put you in. The disc wraps everything up with "Separator", a simple yet elegant track that leaves you wanting more by the time the song is over with wonderful guitar chords and Thom's resonating vocals staying with you long after the song has ended. This album was released last Friday to the surprise of many Radiohead fans around the world, who were expecting the album to arrive a day later. Many others like yours truly thought it would be a few more months before we saw any new Radiohead material, but the band sure knows how to always throw us a curveball our way that we didn't expect. (or did we?) This album as a whole is a fragment of one larger album looming in the distance, judging from the song's last tune and its linear fashion that possibly acts as an interlude into the next part of the album. Hopefully we'll see more of the master plan that Radiohead have up their sleeve sometime soon!
All in all, a solid yet unspectacular effort from Radiohead who continue to prove their case as a band that can do no wrong, but this effort shows some flaws in their dynamic that show Radiohead have a long way ahead to plead their case to the musical jury, the listening audience.
Album Score: 3.5/5
Track Listing:
- Bloom
- Morning Mr. Magpie
- Little By Little
- Feral
- Lotus Flower
- Codex
- Give Up The Ghost
- Separator
If you haven't got the chance to check it out yet, Radiohead released a music video for "Lotus Flower" just last week leading up to the release of the album. The video features Thom dancing awkwardly to the beat of the music, you have to check it out!
No comments:
Post a Comment