Review Summary: Hail!
You'd be hard pressed to find many Radiohead albums as guitar-driven as
Hail to the Thief. The 2003 release of the five Brits from England is one of the most unique, interesting, and distorted albums you can hear, not to mention beautiful. Think of it as a magnum opus for a band who's earlier albums get more exposure (
Kid A, OK Computer), the underrated jewel in a discography. The band had already been stressed enough making a new sound for each album. The electronic sound in Kid A, and the more experimental Amnesiac, you knew the band would have to burn out sometime. So Hail to the Thief is definitely the return to an older formula: use more guitars. And it pays off.
On the other hand, it becomes apparent when Thom Yorke wails the words "
Are you such a dreamer, To put the world to rights? I stay home forever... Where two and two always makes a five" in the album's great opener track, that it will be as bizarre and thought-provoking as the previous two, lyrically. Radiohead, in terms of lyrical content, had gotten more and more creative as the years progressed, and their sixth release continued the trend, unsurprisingly. There's a certain bitterness in Hail to the Thief, as also expressed in the more harmonic
There, There., or the eerie atmosphere of
The Gloaming.
The instruments are as nerve-wracking as the lyrics, otherwise adding to the oddity of the atmosphere. The distorted guitar riffs are heavy in their own way, as expressed in the rocking tracks
2+2=5, Scatterbrain, and Sit Up. Stand Down. Colin Greenwood's bass is further expressed in this album, and is far more audible than previous attempts, more so than it was on
National Anthem in
Kid A. Yorke wails in his spine-chilling falsetto, business as usual, but in his weakest attempt since
The Bends. Selway uses his imagination on the drums in this release, ranging from rocking to electronic to jazzy, showing off some of his strongest work yet.
The softer tracks on the album like
A Wolf at the Door and Myxomatosis aren't particularly a great fit in the overall tone of the album, but serve their purpose well. For the toned-up tracks, they merge perfectly with the other "epics" on the LP. And while there is little to complain about the selection of rock tracks, some may feel the absence of more tracks like
Electioneering, Paranoid Android, and Creep highlight
Go to Sleep, but this album is meant for people who were fans in the first place. The track selection is near-perfect.
With that in order,
Hail to the Thief is easily Radiohead's magnum opus, next to
Amnesiac. If its three predecessors showed us what made the Brits legendary, what made them the group that they are, then
Hail to the Thief proves how stocky they still are, how well they've held up since then, and how much more inventive they've become. Even if the more experimental sounds were better, a blast back to the old days isn't that bad, is it?
In short, Hail to the Thief kicks ass.
