Radiohead:The King of Limbs

Radiohead is one of those bands that does things deliberately. Everything seems to be planned. Everything seems to happen for a reason. From one release to the next, there’s a purpose propelling it forward. So when Radiohead announced out of the blue on Monday, Feb. 14 that their new album, The King of Limbs, would be released digitally on Saturday, Feb. 19 (a mere five days later), and it suddenly popped into the inboxes of countless fans’ e-mails on Friday morning (a full day earlier), one couldn’t help but wonder whether Radiohead was either the sloppiest most unpredictable band of all time, or the most conniving.
Perhaps Radiohead really is trying to pull one over on the audience. With such a brief period between announcement and release date and with such an unexpected maneuver of releasing it a day early, maybe Radiohead is trying to push The King of Limbs into the arms of listeners with no fanfare, no expectations. Maybe it’s a ploy to get people to dive into the album right away. No questions asked. Just a clean, unbiased listen. So then where does that leave the listener?
You can’t help but compare The King of Limbs to their 2007 news-headlining, “pay-what-you-will,” independently and digitally released album In Rainbows. But the reality is that King of Limbs stretches out a lot further than that, more towards Thom Yorke’s solo release The Eraser with much more focus on electronic experimentations of drums, reverb, heavy bass and an overall mellow and subdued approach. Don’t come here looking for the anthems and attention-grabbers like “15 Steps” or “Karma Police.” No, King of Limbs scrapes more of the surface of Hail to the Thief’s “Sail to the Moon” or just about anything off of The Eraser.
Radiohead is constantly fluctuating, changing and building upon everything preceding it. Especially with this album, because this time around they’ve taken a liking to the minimalist approach, specifically, a minimalist’s approach to electronica. The opener, “Bloom,” has such a soft touch in the beginning with its pianos; you almost think it’s a continuation of In Rainbow’s closer “Videotape.” But then the synths and drum machines are layered over, and as they take center stage, it’s like the song has found its own, and it’s drowning you in Yorke’s wistful vocals. On “Morning Mr. Magpie,” the diminished arpeggios of the guitars harken back to songs like Hail to the Thief’s “2+2=5” (minus the heavy breakdown at the end, of course); it’s also one of the more playful tracks on the album. The piano ballad “Codex” takes cues from Thief’s lullaby track, “Sail to the Moon” or the mellow “We Suck Young Blood” from the same album. It’s certainly the premiere ballad of the album. Also, “Little By Little” seems to aspire to the likes of Eraser’s “Black Swan,” with a prominent bass line and Yorke’s nearly cracking voice.
But I grow tired of copying down every Radiohead album they’ve ripped themselves off from. It’s true; they’re clearly inspired by their own past, but outside forces influence them, as well. Fellow UK acts How to Dress Well and James Blake and London’s dubstep golden-boy, Burial, are just a few that come to mind. The dubstep appeal of Burial’s newest release Untrue can be heard throughout almost any track on King of Limbs, especially the frenzied drums of “Feral.” But not only that, as “Feral” continues on, it seems oddly familiar to James Blake’s “Tell Her Safe” from his Klavierwerke EP. In fact, the quick-paced drum machines and Yorke’s quiet—nearly-silent—background vocals almost seem lifted straight from it. “Give Up the Ghost” sounds like it takes some cues from How to Dress Well’s “Escape Before the Rain.” The soft, ringing falsetto and the otherworldly acoustic guitar put the listener into an experience all in itself. The album’s inspirations are plain and clear, sometimes glaringly so.
The misconception, then, might be that Radiohead has lost its flame, its passion. It’s like they’re just ripping and stealing from other artists, right? No. Radiohead hasn’t lost any of its zeal or creativity; in fact, they’re doing exactly what they’ve always done best: Radiohead. Sure, they’re picking and choosing among select modern artists who are also embracing this minimalist approach to electronic music, but they’re building on their own foundation, playing around with their past releases and helping to solidify them as the deliberate works of art that they are. Albums like Hail to the Thief, Amnesiac and Yorke’s Eraser were met with much less universal appeal than, say, The Bends or OK Computer. So The King of Limbs is like validation. In its very brisk 8-track, 37-minute length, Radiohead has given its listeners a reason to care about their past releases. The haunting, droning voice of Yorke, the ominous pianos and staccato synths: they’re all present, and they’re all a reminder that Radiohead still has a firm grasp on what they’ve always done so well.
The King of Limbs won’t exactly come across as the next Kid A, rather it will be the reminder every fan needs that Radiohead does what it does for a reason. They build upon their musical repertoire one album after another, step by step. It’s a continual process that—with every new release—constantly feels like its budding into something entirely new. So on King of Limbs’ final track “Separator” when Yorke declares, with his trademark fragile voice, “If you think this is over, then you’re wrong,” we couldn’t be happier.
-Robert Miller