Radiohead and I have had a very interesting relationship together over the past four years. There’s been some bumps along the way, but I’m glad to say that we’ve both sat down and talked it over and we’re both on the same page with the newest album The King Of Limbs. Let me say first of all that I am not a huge ‘Radiohead’ – what I’ve now coined Radiohead fans… Clever, I know… – but I am a fan of a type of sound they do particularly well, ambient rock. If you’re into trippy and moving music, The King Of Limbs is definitely an album to look into.
Good: There’s a lot to like about The King Of Limbs, especially the high quality production put into the sound and atmosphere meticulously placed throughout the entire album. From record scratching and dust to delayed bleep-n’-bloops there’s always something to be paying attention to. I often find myself just focusing in on one particular sound trying to isolate it inside my head and attempting to interpreting it’s real world form. It’s very rare you find music that’s fun to sit and listen to. I could go on forever about what Radiohead did right in this album – the singing melodies, lyrical content, catchy drum beats, solid bass, and superb dual guitar riffs – but the best favour I can do for you is to tell you the songs that stood out to me as the cream of the crop and you can decide for yourself wether you agree with my particular taste in Radiohead or not. Notables include Morning Mr. Magpie, Little By Little, and Lotus Flower.
Bad: The hard line most band’s ride when making a more relaxing sounding album is to have it up-beat enough that the music is interesting but to not let it get too slow and droning so that it becomes a burden to the listener’s attention span. This is the only problem in any shape or form I had with the album, some song’s movements just carried on a little too long for my liking. That being said, if you had a pistol to my temple and were threatening to blow my brains out while also having a sawed-off shotgun pointed at my girlfriend holding both of our cats and told me I absolutely had to pick two songs that had to be taken off of my iTunes forever, they would have to be Feral and Separator. These song aren’t terrible, but I love my girlfriend and cats dearly. I’m sure you would make the same decision in my situation.
Radiohead has had a rough time trying to win over my love, but ultimately I think this album has the perfect feel and sound from what I’ve been wanting to hear from them all this time. There’s enough spacey and ambient sounds to keep the songs truly interesting from start to finish, the guitars are clean and crisp, the drums always have a fresh new sound in each song, the vocals melodies don’t usually overstay their welcome and just everything in general is top notch. Did we expect anything less? At the end of the day I can really start to call myself a fan of this album. You’ve done it boys, I am now a ‘Radiohead’.
Radiohead’s The King Of Limbs gets 4 surprise CD announcements out of 5.
-Nich Longe
February 24th, 2011
Nich Longe 