First Thoughts: Radiohead - The King Of Limbs

Well, everyone's been going crazy online for the release of the new Radiohead album today - I'd be interested to know how many man-hours have been wasted looking up news on and listening to the album - It won't have reached the apparent $120m dollars that Google's stunt of putting a game on its homepage cost the world last year, but it can't be all that far off.

And, to be honest, I'm finding it quite disappointing so far. The opener, 'Bloom', starts off fairly like the opener of the last album, sounding exactly how you'd expect Radiohead to start an album. On their last record, however, that angle was abandoned after only 30 seconds, and the 'actual' album started with a lovely, beautiful guitar tone. It was almost as though they were playing with your expectations and then showing that they were capable of doing something slightly more human. This time, they haven't bothered. The whole first side of the album is pretty electronic, with little of the heart of the last record and none of the invention of, say, Kid A. It's just Radiohead-by-numbers, and not even exciting numbers at that. Think 22/7 rather than π.

The second half is definitely an improvement on the first, but again, it all seems like a retread. What seems so far to be the popular choice for 'best track on the album', 'Codex', is pretty much exactly the same as Pyramid Song, only without the interesting time signature - a rehash of a 10-year-old song, from a band held as one of the more groundbreaking of the modern era. Not that impressive.

None of this is to say I dislike the album. I am going to give it a fair few more plays over the next few days, and might come to eat all the words I've just written. 'Separator' is a genuinely brilliant song, as is 'Give Up The Ghost', making for a fantastic end to the album. The pre-released single, 'Lotus Flower', is pretty good and atmospheric too, even though Yorke's dancing does remind me of one of those air-sock-men you get outside garages (this is a reference to the 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia' episode "The Gang Buys a Boat" - definitely worth a watch)





I'll probably do a more full review later. Until then, I'll probably be re-listening and trying to work out how anyone can see this as remotely comparable to the brilliance that was 'In Rainbows'.