The King Of Limbs by Radiohead

The King of Limbs (Radiohead)

Let it slowly unfurl as lotus flowers.

Album Rating: **** (4/5)
 

Announcing your album a week before its release. And then releasing it a day before it is supposed to be out. Radiohead never play it simple. They try to make situations and their music as complex as possible, and their new release is no exception. Labeled as “The King of Limbs”, (possibly referring to an oak tree in Wiltshire's Savernake Forest, thought to be 1,000 years old) the physical release of this album is due March end and special “Newspaper” edition early May.
 

Radiohead are always considered to have a cult following of sorts generated by heavy experimentation with the advent of Kid A. They revolutionized the entire music scene and also the corporate world by exiting from a major record label and distributing their albums as “Pay-as-you-like” copies (read ‘In Rainbows’). Such “Out-of-the-box” thinking landed them at the top spot for the Best Artist in the last decade. So, How do they start the new decade? With a brilliant album, of course.

 

Few minutes into the album and it becomes quite clear that this record not only requires but demands your full attention.  Another thing quite apparent is that Radiohead are not reverting back to crowd pleasing era of OK Computer rather further dwelling into experimentation and modernization of tracks with complete use of resource at their disposal.  To judge this album on a few listens is nothing short of a crime, and patience in this regard is highly rewarded.  Clocking in at 37 minutes, this is the shortest Radiohead album and it has all the rhythmic upsets which Radiohead are best at.

‘Bloom’, the album opener, starts with a short but gorgeous piano part before a series off-beat rickety drum kicks. “Open your Mouth wide, The Universal Sigh” declares Thom. The resulting tension is reminiscent of ‘Reckoner’ and is simultaneously intriguing and off-putting. Following are a series of fast paced tracks with ‘Morning Mr Magpie’, a song with perfect bass and drum coordination. Colin (bassist) and Phil (drummer) are playing off each other with challenge from Mr. Yorke (“You got some nerve coming here”), this one has everything to please the fans.

Arabic melody anyone? Enter ‘Little By Little’.  A very unsettling song which is the closest the album gets to a pop moment. Mischievous, fun and very catchy, this song has the lightest set of lyrics (“I am such a tease, You are such a flirt!”). That we are. Next, We have ‘Feral’ in which heavily treated vocals appear in and out, while the different instruments (a bit of chainsaw bass here, a chime of keyboard there) sound like they exist in different universes entirely. Trippy stuff.

The latter half of the record gets gloomier, soothing and dark. By Now, You must already know how to dance to the next song ‘Lotus Flower’ (if you don’t, I highly recommend Thom Yorke’s dancing video for the same). Watch it, now.  Start losing your senses as several melodic layers of this song is uncovered. 

What follows next is perhaps the best track of the record, ’Codex’. Meditative, Sublime and Beautiful. A haunting vacuum grips you as this song constantly cleanses your mind like a hypnotic charm. It begets new life (“jump off the end”) and tries to restore humanity in its purest form (“You’ve done nothing wrong, the water’s clear and innocent”). This song (like One by U2) has a universal appeal in its own dark pessimistic way and Thom has provided one of his best heart felt vocals on this track.

As the album end draws near, bird chirping becomes more apparent in ‘Give Up The Ghost’,  a purposeful song that paints its relaxed desolation with a simple, frontier-esque acoustic guitar almost reminding us of Sigur Ros. As Radiohead start to bid adieu on the last track ‘Separator’, they continue to provide distinct reverb, echo and vague dreamlike setting with the departing lines “If you think this is over, then you are wrong”. We would love nothing more.

This record draws some influence from Thom Yorke’s solo album “The Eraser” and previous releases like “Amnesiac” and remains rather inaccessible to easy listening audience. It certainly establishes Phil Selway as One of the best Drummers in Rock history. The only thing missing from the entire equation is front role of Jonny and Ed but I am pretty sure they are playing heavy “behind the role” on several tracks. Does it bother that the entire record is stripped of distorted guitars? For Conventional fans, it might be, but for people who were happy with the outcome of Kid A, it shouldn’t be worrying at all.

On a Personal note, Jonny’s brilliance behind the guitars is missed at times and a few tracks featuring it might have just made it another ‘perfect’ record.  But then again, it might just disturb the continuity of the album. I guess, we will never know.

Key Songs: Codex, Giving Up The Ghost, Little by Little, Lotus Flowers.

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