Like the rest of the world, I’ve been eagerly waiting for a new Radiohead album for a while now. So when they announced The King Of Limbs was coming out on Saturday – and then released it on Friday – needless to say, I was ecstatic. After a few listens, I can easily say that this is a good Radiohead album (which of course equivocates to a phenomenal album compared to everything else). TKOL has two sides with rather different styles – the first side being mainly beat and groove focused, and the second side being more acoustic and emotional. The opening track Bloom, probably my favorite track on the album, fucking soars with its off-kilter drum beats, plunky piano, and Thom Yorke’s incredibly heartfelt vocals. What I love so much about this song – and really this whole album – is how it builds, more so than any other Radiohead release. I can certainly see a kraut/post rock influence in these tunes. By Lotus Flower, the album has shifted its focus back to melodies and choruses, and by Codex they’ve gone full acoustic/piano rock. And really, it works very well On the track Give Up The Ghost, Yorkes looping vocals are greeted by a seemingly generic four chord structure. But as the song progresses and builds, it remains an acoustic song, but it’s an acoustic song by Radiohead – those four chords disappear behind walls of sound quite nicely. Really, the only gripe I have for this album is, of course, the length (and there is that rumor of two or three more short albums being released in the near future... they do have two 10” discs to fill up with music after all) But even if there’s no more Radiohead for this year, I’m very pleased with this, and it’s definitely going on my end of the year list
9/10
I mean, it’s good, but its no Kid A
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