Review Summary: Siphoning a sort of strange beauty from a glacial approach, "The King of Limbs" is riddled with the same kind of paranoia, dada, and gossamer meticulousness that we have come to expect from the band.
There’s a sort of communal music listening experience that has been lost in modern times. Technology is an unstoppable external pressure, that through free-share over the internet has eroded away at the foundations of the concept of a
cohesive album (something that is now generally considered a mere antiquity). The journey from the periphery to the center of a record is more or less seemingly arbitrary. Though in lieu of these realizations that the music industry is dying (some could argue, for the better), Radiohead continue to be mercurial and guerrilla strategists, tightly guarding any information concerning their
works-in-progress and deciding to drop it and run whenever they see fit. Most recently, the press was given just five days (which unexpectedly turned into four) to hype
“The King of Limbs”, effectively stultifying all other music related news in the past week. The result? A collective listening experience, where everybody would tune in blind and headfirst.
The big question is, of course,
"What direction have they taken this time?". Proving that Yorke’s collaboration with Flying Lotus wasn’t just a mere dalliance,
“The King of Limbs” is very much an album in the same methodological vein as
“Kid A”; a distinct reinterpretation of the band’s current musical obsessions. Subtly sprinkled Burial-esc dubstep influences and Flying Lotus glitchiness (most apparent on the somewhat fugacious and mundane panic attack of “Feral”) provides a proper backing to Radiohead’s most rhythmic album yet. Though William Bevan and Steven Ellison may lurk in the fixtures, they‘re merely influences and not direct sources for sounds and ideas, as
“The King of Limbs” is
still characteristically Radiohead doing what they do best; tumbling along in krautrock pace through brooding and elegiac chord changes. They've just placed themselves in the mindset of a jazzist whose flesh has been caught in a kaleidoscope of fractured drum patterns and pulsating bass.
Album opener “Bloom” presents itself in the same way that “Everything in it’s Right Place” did on
“Kid A” over a decade ago, as an obtuse with an imposing statement. It’s an effervescent clockwork exercise in the traditions of off-kilter drum work, beleaguered with layers of synth, slowly ascending stings, and Johnny Greenwood’s infamous Ondes-Martenot work. Perhaps most surprising though is the prevalence of Phil Selway‘s drum work on this album. While normally understated, his talent for exact and rhythmically complex drumming is absolutely
necessary in making this album function, whether its presented organically or cut up and processed in a similar vein as to that of "Airbag". The sultry and aerated “Little by Little” piggybacks on his samba-esc drumming, making it one of Radiohead’s most exotic songs in recent memory. Furthermore, the dark and sinewy “Good Morning Mr. Magpie” operates off the steam of Selway’s stuttering hop-scotch approach, as stubbed bass and jittering guitars (ala, Thom Yorke’s “Harrowdown Hill”) help make it the album’s busiest moment. Once again, guitars have taken the back seat this time around. Though it has yet to be determined if this record contains even
fewer guitars than
"Kid A" did, it is a fact that they are vestigial, or at the most, heavily processed and pasted. Only the low-slung guitar licks on "Little by Little", the folksy strums of "Give up the Ghost", and the semi-soloing guitars on the album's denouement are obviously true to the nature of the instrument.
Ultimately
“The King of Limbs” is an album based around moiety, the first half being a workout in layered patterns and repetitions, while the second half remains vastly more accessible and humanized. Though relatively jejune, “Lotus Flower” is nonetheless the album’s finest track. Yorke’s lithe voice is especially soulful on this particularly dancey song, which sounds somewhat like a more insouciant and halcyon “Morning Bell”. Further proving the dichotomous nature of the album, the second half is considerably pastoral. The lambent orchestral dew dripping of “Codex” which evaporates into the Neil Young-esc ballad “Give up the Ghost” provide a
stark opposition to the first four track’s mossy and petrichor tinged atmosphere. As the fog begins to roll out, we’re left “Separator”, the final and somewhat prosaic track that is nonetheless charming with its
“Marquee Moon” mimicking guitar lines.
"And if you think this is over you're wrong" croons Yorke in the album's final moments, teasingly and presumably giving Radiohead fanboys something to decipher in the coming days.
As with most Radiohead albums,
"The King of Limbs" is a release that slowly uncoils and plucks teasingly at your ears until you're conditioned to join the mindset in which the band constructs their own
modus operandi. They're ceaselessly pathogenic with every album, and yet, I can't help but feel underwhelmed by
"The King of Limbs". It's a scant record that ultimately continues to settle Radiohead into their own distinct sound. While not necessarily a bad thing, it makes expectations for future albums by the band relatively placid in comparison to the media hysteria that resulted from their excursions in
"Kid A" and
"Amnesiac". Nevertheless,
"The King of Limbs" is still their most daunting release since those years, where repeated listens reveal its rather lavish and mellifluous nature. Siphoning a sort of strange beauty from a glacial approach,
"The King of Limbs" is riddled with the same kind of paranoia, dada, and gossamer meticulousness that we have come to expect from the band. While not a landmark in Radiohead's career, it sparks further belief in Yorke's mantra that tunes are dead, and rhythm is everything.
