Final Grade: A-
By now Radiohead is able to distill their musical thesis down to such a pure form that experimentation isn’t just the norm, it’s practically their DNA. Their 2007 pay-what-you-want album In Rainbows gave them a lot of press, but what got lost in the fray was the fact that the band spent more than four years aggressively touring the album’s material and tweaking it to be exactly what they wanted.
They’ve dabbled in jazz improvisation, heavy rock and electronica in search of the satisfaction that only comes from something unique. Today the drums just keep going, soldiering ahead like a train, driving the track forward. That underpinning, however soft, is the heartbeat of “Lotus Flower,” Radiohead’s first single off of their eighth album, The King of Limbs, released Friday morning. “Lotus Flower” is a good example of how they’ve blended the digital rock rabbit hole of OK Computer, the artistry of Kid A, and the fervent political energy of Hail to the Thief into a coherent mix that is decidedly their own.
In the single, Radiohead uses the staccato electronic elements and spectral synths that have littered their work since the mid ’90s: humming bass lines, clapping hands with no real guitar work, just the cavernous digital landscape waiting for Yorke’s voice to fill the void. Since The Bends, the band has been reinventing itself in search of just how they want to make music.
That the video for “Lotus Flower” features a spastically dancing Thom Yorke in black and white fits the song perfectly. It is a wonderful representation of the masterful ways in which the band has directed its manic energy into powerfully detailed streams. The track is muted, but feels like it’s bursting at the seams as Yorke’s falsetto just barely lifts to a scream before echoing back and returning to a croon.
The rest of the record is filled with meditative, slow-burning songs that don’t quite hit the high-water mark of “Lotus Flower,” but contain the same high quality music the band has turned out for years. “Morning Mr. Magpie” is another example of a song that first emerged in studio sessions years ago and has only now been properly recorded for an album. There are moments reminiscent of Kid A, Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief, but big fans of the guitar-heavy Radiohead might be disappointed with the amount of dark piano and horn-laden ballads present here.
A lingering question throughout the album is what Radiohead wants to confront with their music now. With OK Computer and Hail to the Thief the band effectively confronted changing technological and geopolitical fears, and In Rainbows brought all of their disparate sound styles together in one piece. This record is dark, ominous and surprisingly brief at approximately 37 minutes, but it doesn’t have the same thematic focus as Radiohead’s other albums. That is probably the only thing keeping it from being another home run for the band, but they’ve worked themselves into a place where they sound like they’re carefully working out what they want to tackle. The King of Limbs ends with the sound of Radiohead searching for what they want to say next.