radiohead: hail to the thief.
this one's impressionistic,
this one's lightly tossed,
this one comes across more relaxed.
say what you will about radiohead, but i like the fact that they try. the news with hail to the thief is that they're not trying too hard this time around.
the most overtly statement is the title of the album itself: the motto by those who protest the decision to make george w. bush the american president in 2000. otherwise, everything else is highly relaxed. rather than the epic three year battle to produce the monumental redesign that was kid a and its hypnotic companion amnesiac, radiohead's 6th album was done really quickly, with most of the tracks already road-tested on tours.
the album kicks off with 2 + 2 = 5, which bursts out of the gate with a guitar driven barnstormer that brings to mind their the bends/ok computer glory days of straightforward songs. however, at this point, we start to drift through the abstract beauty of the other songs, where gentle sparse chimes turn into broody idioteques and lullabies lead the way. all the wondrous disturbed songs are present as well, including backdrifts, which takes amnesiac's demented like spinning plates, but plays it in the right direction this time, changing the menace into a pulsating orb of cold beauty. vocalist thom yorke as well enriches his singing style to include an almost bob dylan-esque twang to future single go to sleep and a frantic sputtered scat for the album closer a wolf at the door.
in fact, large chunks of this album feel like a tribute to radiohead's rich backcatalogue, where their affinity to new orleans funeral procession music kicks in again with the methodical (and sometimes plodding) we suck young blood with the feel of you and whose army. scatterbrain feels like it would fit in with their early material whilst myxomatosis would fit in perfectly with their latter exercises.
overall, the entire album has a loose feel, as though radiohead were actually bringing back the fun they used to share in the beginning. listening to the wonderful song there there, you realize that even though the song seems weird and low-key, the warm fuzzy tones strike and the deep sweetness rises up as though it were in a swamp that it could easily defeat. and where i end and you begin manages to evoke vintage middle period u2 as though they had switched bodies.
like most radiohead albums, the more you listen to it, the more it unfolds its rich bounty. hail to the thief speaks to a captive audience and yet manages to steal the show once again.
now to kill off any further punnage.