Radiohead’s Return

As a devout Radiohead fan, I waited with bated breath for the long-anticipated, much-hyped, and partially leaked sequel to In Rainbows, the band’s 2007 installment that some critics lauded as the best album of the year. Of course, I mistakenly assumed that The King of Limbs in fact was a sequel to In Rainbows; I sensed a trend after the release of Thom Yorke’s hypnotic, at times beautifully intricate experimental rock solo album, The Eraser, in 2006. By now we’ve all been disenchanted: The King of Limbs sits somewhere between The Bends and Hail to the Thief in style, and well below In Rainbows and O.K. Computer in quality. Though I wouldn’t call it the band’s worst album – and for Radiohead, that still reads “better than most anything being commercially produced today” – it’s certainly a disappointment, especially given the band’s recent, highly acclaimed work.
In many ways, The King of Limbs reminds me of the inconsistent, intermittently pleasing electro-rock mix that a listen to Hail to the Thief offers. Vintage post-1997 Radiohead definitely bleeds through during certain tracks on The King of Limbs, from “Bloom,” to “Lotus Flower,” and maybe even “Codex” if you count Yorke’s piano riffs as “vintage.” What distinguishes these tracks is the incredible attention the musicians pay to poignantly layered electronic beats and melodies, of which some integrate, others contrast, and all magnificently build off of each other. In fact, “Bloom,” the album’s first track, introduces a sound reminiscent of In Rainbow’s “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” and “All I Need” – an act of deception, as The King of Limbs largely diverges from the theme. However, “Morning Mr. Magpie” quickly follows, an upbeat track with a clearly identifiable guitar riff and, at least for Yorke, commonplace vocals. A notch above filler, “Mr. Magpie” isn’t an unpleasant listen, but I found myself longing for the next track.
However, the next track doesn’t break the trend – in fact, the next ten minutes of music slide by without much distinction. Radiohead’s been guilty of this phenomenon before: think of the three-note, go-nowhere dummy tracks on Amnesiac (and some, albeit to better effect, on Kid A),  and the purely electronic, Trance-infused beats on Hail to the Thief. They’re the anomalies, the songs that in retrospect leave you asking, “What were they trying to do here?” It’s a question I often pose when confronted with Radiohead’s stranger side, encapsulated in the self-absorbed, song-debasing (not to mention low budget) video that accompanied the release of the album’s single, “Lotus Flower.” I won’t say that tracks on The King of Limbs left me with the same alienated impression that the video (and some of Radiohead’s earlier songs) cause, but their lack of impression left me similarly confused.
Luckily, “Lotus Flower,” sans video, helps. In fact, it helps a lot – and it begins a second half of the album more substantial than the first. However, this dynamic turn caught me off-guard. Instead of returning to a hyper-detailed electronic sound – a technique that saved Amnesiac – the band slows down, pulls out the acoustic guitar, and draws upon a younger Radiohead, from the days of The Bends and, perhaps more accurately, that random track from their sixth album, “Go to Sleep.” Among these songs, “Give Up the Ghost” is the best, a moving piece of acoustic rock that rivals Coldplay (their first two albums at least). In fact, the song’s uniqueness and power speaks to Radiohead’s overall originality and the band’s ability to perform music in a variety of genres better than most bands can do in one. Still, I wasn’t hooked by two of the album’s last three songs. Unlike Radiohead’s typical approach, these tracks combined routine chord progressions with trite vocals and offered little novelty.
In its entirety, The King of Limbs is more of an intriguing extension to In Rainbows than a game-changing follow-up. While some tracks are skillfully composed webs of sound, others suffer from a symptom rather unlike Radiohead: predictability. Many songs on the album are uninteresting, and others simply unpleasant (in predictable Radiohead fashion). This may have been a byproduct of the band’s attempt to be unpredictable, to break away from a prototype it has long adopted. But if this is the case, the plan backfired: The King of Limbs is at its best when it offers tracks evocative of the intricate electro-rock the band is known for. In other words, classic Radiohead. Therefore, I’m still looking forward to that sequel.