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Radiohead In Rainbows Released in 2007 9.0/10 Styles Rock Experimental Rock Song Highlights 15 Step Reckoner Jigsaw Falling Into Place |
After an extremely impressive run of successive standout albums since the mid-90s, 2003's Hail to the Thief felt somewhat like Radiohead on autopilot. It was one of those albums that you can describe as being uniformly "decent", but there wasn't a single track on the album that really pulled me in and got me emotionally invested in the music. Barring Pablo Honey (as we always do), I still go back to every other Radiohead album with great regularity, but Hail to the Thief is lucky to get played once every six months, if even that. It's for this reason that I've been hoping for a strong return to form on the group's latest effort, the recently released In Rainbows. You've probably heard this bit by now, but for the sake of completeness I'll add some background info: Thom Yorke & Co. took the interesting step of deciding to release In Rainbows as a "pay what you want" download, with vinyl and CD releases to come further down the line. There's been plenty of talk about how this move serves as some sort of blow to the music industry, but I think this might be over-dramatising the scenario to some extent. In my opinion, the most interesting aspect of In Rainbows' release is the extremely short time - just ten days - between the album's announcement and actual release. With internet leaks having become virtually an expected norm, it isn't often that an album this highly anticipated has such a sudden, short-term response, both amongst critics and fans. With no advance copies being sent to reviewers, everything to do with the release and reception of In Rainbows seemed to happen in fast-forward, and this total lack of "warm up time" for critics, between hearing and reviewing the album, meant that the hype and anticipation for In Rainbows was at an almost unprecedented high. In terms of stirring up an impassioned critical response, it really was a stroke of genius. Like many fans, I found myself feeling quite excited about this impending event, but I've forced myself to give the album an appropriate number of listens and time to sink in before attempting this review, with the goal of providing a genuinely level-headed evaluation. Three weeks later, the album certainly isn't getting any worse, and I can confidently (and very happily) proclaim that In Rainbows ranks amongst the band's very best work. The beginning of In Rainbows is worthy of particular note, as it serves as one of the cleverest deceptions I've heard in music in some time. It's no secret that many people have been hoping to hear a return to the less "electro-dependent" Radiohead of the 1990s, and the opening of "15 Step", with its hard, skittering, electronic percussion, firmly suggests that this stylistic change to the good old days really isn't on the cards. Mere moments into the track, though, Johnny Greenwood rolls in with one of the band's most memorable - and totally natural - guitar lines. As the song develops, it starts to sound warmer and far more organic than the group's last few efforts, with plenty of unfiltered instrumentation, direct vocals and crisp, clean production. It's interesting that many people are trying to place exactly how In Rainbows fits into the Radiohead canon - is it ambient electronica melded with rock like Kid A and Amnesiac? Experimental rock like OK Computer? Straight rock like The Bends? In all honesty, it isn't really any of these, and yet with Radiohead's characteristic stamp left on this album - as it is on all their albums - it also sounds a little bit like all of them. It's a certainty that this is the group's least electronic-sounding album since OK Computer, with merely the hints of computerised accompaniment that were evident on that album, rather than the saturation of the three albums which followed it, and yet, to say that In Rainbows sounds like OK Computer would be massively misleading, as it features little of that record's bleak edginess. To put it as simply as possible, In Rainbows is the sound of Radiohead being - believe it or not - comfortable. The songs here are mostly very relaxed affairs, without any of the forced histrionics or overt "weirdness" that dominated many of their other works. Even the upbeat, rockier numbers like "Bodysnatchers" sound quite fun and exuberant. I'm not going to claim that Radiohead sound cheerful exactly, but this is an upswing of mood and a lightening of the group's aesthetic that couldn't have come at a better time - it's a burst of vitality from a band who were in danger of growing a little stale from wallowing in their depressive pessimism and boundless paranoia for a little too long. Despite the more relaxed and comfortable sound, Yorke's vocals remains as passionate as ever, with his slurring, pitched delivery being instantly recognisable. That said, they're noticeably lacking the unhinged, "seasick" approach of Radiohead's more experimental work. His vocal work on In Rainbows isn't quite a return to the more straightforward singing of The Bends, but it's definitely as close as they've gotten since then. His lyrical content, on the other hand, remains utterly cryptic, as he continues to trade in introspective, contextless sentiments. In Rainbows is rife with lyrics that look downright meaningless on paper, yet Yorke succeeds in making the enigmatic undeniably powerful through his impassioned delivery and appealing phrasing. As is the case on many Radiohead albums, he manages to expound a sizeable handful of extremely memorable vocal snippets, such as the frenzied cry of "I have no idea what I am talking about!" (fitting, isn't it?) that cuts frantically through the instrumentation midway through "Bodysnatchers". With Nigel Godrich's typically spacious, layered production in effect, In Rainbows is also noteworthy for being an extremely dense recording. The rockers are made especially aggressive through either flattened, noisy, fuzzed out instrumentation or sharp, immediate crispness, while the gentler, more somber tracks, such as "Nude", "Reckoner" and "Videotape", are made appropriately lush and serene with the selective addition of majestic strings and distant, ghostly backing vocals. After my first few listens, I'd convinced myself that the album lagged in the middle, with the four track run from "All I Need" to "House of Cards" not grabbing me as much as the rest of the album. As is often the case, though, additional listens have forced me to change my tune to some extent. While my opinion of "House of Cards" remains mostly unchanged (I'd say it's the album's weakest track by a significant margin), the slow, bassy progression of "All I Need" is growing on me a little more every time, while the tracks in between - "Faust Arp" and "Reckoner" - have moved to unequivocal "thumbs up" status. "Reckoner" is especially great, with its echoing percussion, mellow guitar lines and Yorke's haunting vocal performance giving the song a melancholy yet decidedly sinister feel. The album closes very strongly, with "Jigsaw Falling Into Place", a track which contrasts sedate vocals and drifting instrumentation against speedy percussion, in a manner reminiscent of Amnesiac's "Knives Out", and "Videotape", which concludes the album on an especially delicate note, this time in a manner which recalls the softer numbers heard on The Bends. The final moments of In Rainbows serve as a perfect reflection of its opening - just as "15 Step" began with a rare flourish of obviously electronic percussion, the actual drums on "Videotape" are slowly overrun by a similar, electronic counterpart. It's a very appropriate way to close things off, as it gives the album a nice feeling of having come full circle, finishing right where it started. In Rainbows, in addition to being an unexpected pleasure by its sudden emergence alone, is a definite, resounding success, ranking amongst Radiohead's best work. Even after the initial excitement dies down (other albums are merely releases, yet Radiohead albums seem to be events), I'm confident that this latest effort will still go on to hold "classic" status. If you consider yourself a Radiohead fan, chances are you've already downloaded the album and formed your own opinion (do we agree?). However, if you haven't already gotten a hold of it, I strongly recommend that you check it out. After all, it won't cost you a cent. |