Radiohead
The King of Limbs
Self-Released, 2011
By Ashley Starford
It’s hard to name a group who’ve had more exposure to internet discussion forums than England’s most consistently dazzling band. Amidst months of hype in the music world, Britain’s perennial pleasers have reached that consistency again: the Oxford five-piece have produced a solid, yet not profoundly experimental effort which will please fans and newcomers alike. Earmarked by agitated guitars and harrowing vocal noise, The King of Limbs in a sense continues the band’s progressive nature and in a stronger one rekindles the sound experienced in front man Thom Yorke’s solo album The Eraser: synthesized-electro harmonies accompanied by incoherent falsetto vocal chords. This has become emblematic of the band post 1997’s OK Computer, preferring an alternative-electro production to that of its Pablo Honey and The Bends alternative-rock predecessors.
“Bloom”, the first track of the album offers a loopy delayed piano sample, a somewhat dull experiment that pales in comparison to the sound generated on the band’s most recent previous album, In Rainbows. “Morning Mr. Magpie” arrives next, offering the fans of the band’s guitar-driven sound their only real distortion pedal experience, before the jingle of guitars which sound more like mandolins arrive for the introduction of “Little By Little”, before the band’s first single from The King of Limbs “Lotus Flower” arrives, where one can picture quite easily Yorke at the centre of the song’s message and sound. It is halfway through the record where the listener should be able to determine that The King of Limbs is an album that will improve noticeably after several uninterrupted listens.
Fans will be disappointed of the album’s length, reaching a mere 37:24. Newcomers will rue in the lack of easy-listening singles which the band produced in its earlier years. Sincere appreciators of the band’s genre will acknowledge that this well-rehearsed territory for Radiohead, and that despite being welcomingly audible, it lacks the band’s trademark progressive and genre-defining ambitious sound. King of Limbs is pleasant, thoughtful and well constructed. However it is not radical, game-changing or perplexing like Radiohead’s best efforts.
3 stars