Albums by this artist

"Where do we go from here? / the words are coming out all weird."

So Thom Yorke sang on the title track of 1995's epochal Brit-pop shattering The Bends. Four albums later, this question seems more pertinent than ever. The band was swept up in an unprecedented tornado of critical acclaim and public attention after 1997's OK Computer and in two albums since then, it has concentrated on pushing its music in more willfully abstract directions, often burying any intelligible lyrics beneath layers of electronically manipulated sound textures.

Likewise, frontman Thom Yorke's political messages and social commentary on recent albums have been muddled. On Amnesiac's cold, glitch-thick "Pull Pulk/Revolving Doors," one of the few lyrics to emerge to the surface was Yorke's dispassionate Mac-altered voice warning of "secret doors, revolving doors, and trap doors you can't come back from." Two of the most tumultuous years our society's ever seen later, Yorke's comments could be viewed as eerily prophetic, or it could just be that general dread and paranoia looks prophetic in the rear view mirror. But with sixth album Hail To The Thief, the band seems to have relaxed. The pressure of following up OK Computer has been vanquished, Radiohead seems to have worked out its internal struggles, and the group's music is once again bare and honest.

On Hail To The Thief, Radiohead are resigned to the fact that it may be too late to escape the traps we've fallen into as a species. But rather than dwelling on these traps, the band members are determined to revel in what's left, pushing the boundaries of the sound they have defined over the course of five magnificent albums, intent to do the best they can with the tools and the ideas at hand. Essentially, this is the sound of Radiohead getting comfortable with being Radiohead. Which begs the question: what is being Radiohead?

Contrasted with the icy detachment of Amnesiac and Kid A, Hail To The Thief's opener "2+2=5" sounds downright celebratory, its guitar flourishes rivaling the high points of "Paranoid Android." The exquisite "Sail To The Moon" is fairly textbook Radiohead balladry, pitching itself somewhere between "Pyramid Song" and "How to Disappear Completely." But the new tune trumps its weepy predecessors with a languid, slow-burning piano melody, as Yorke embarks on a stream-of-consciousness fantasy of finding higher ground to survive an apocalypse ("in the flood you'll build an ark and sail us to the moon"). "The Gloaming," the secondary title for the record and its emotional core, initially muses on the bass line from Joy Division's "Heart And Soul" before metamorphosing into a murky, cacophonous static-glitch number, as Yorke cautions, "this is the witching hour / your alarm clocks should be ringing / this is the gloaming."

"There There," the first single, is the band's most radio-friendly track since "Karma Police," and amazingly enough doesn't contain a chorus. It's just three minutes of jangly, harmonious, glorious pop, emphasizing the interactions of rhythm and musing on the uselessness of subjectivity with its deceptively simple refrain "Just because you feel it doesn't mean it's there."

"I Will," which was reversed as the backing track to Amnesiac's "Like Spinning Plates," sounds absolutely nothing like its electronically manipulated cousin. Instead, it's a stark ballad in the vein of "Exit Music" that ostensibly recounts the harrowing experience of Iraqi villagers trapped inside a bunker during the first Gulf War. Yorke's quavering vocals are in the forefront here, and sound more personally affected than they have in years, as if he's channeling an emotional well he hasn't ventured into since the inception of OK Computer. The song is perhaps his most emotional vocal take since that album's standout "Lucky."

The band, particularly Yorke, have gone to great lengths to dispel the notion that Hail To The Thief's title is merely a reference to the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Yet when covering Can's "The Thief" on their 2001 tour, the group would frequently dedicate the song to George W. Bush. Whatever the group's intention, the finished version of Thief is rife with political innuendo, even if isn't all straightforward. While Yorke's lyrics are more strongly pronounced, he politically equivocates, shying away from direct mandates. Yet from the Orwellian reference in the frenetic "2+2=5" to the "We can wipe you out anytime" intonation during "Sit Down, Stand Up," a sense of political and existential dread pervades the album. Thief is an emotional coctail, combining the detached fury of being completely out of control mixed with the fear of what would happen if the proletariat did regain control.

Hail To The Thief is the sound of a band growing comfortable with its own sound as well as its political ideologies, in much the way R.E.M. did around the time of Lifes Rich Pageant and Document. While Thief lacks the eco-optimism/idealism of R.E.M.'s foray into commentary on the slash-and-burn perniciousness of the Reagan years, it does find comfort in a sort of self-reassuring acceptance. Ultimately, as Yorke admits during the incendiary "Backdrifts," "We tried, but there was nothing we could do." The stakes are higher now, and this, more than anything, explains Yorke's reluctance to discuss his political feelings directly (He's confessed in interviews that if he said what was really on his mind regarding the U.S.'s and Britain's foreign policies, he and his family would receive death threats.)

But the record closes with four magnificent tracks that drag the group's inimitable musical prowess out of the political mire: the jaunty jazz vamp "Punch Up At A Wedding," the demonic, fuzzed-out rocker "Myxamatosis," the longing ballad "Scatterbrain," and the brilliant, Dylan-esque rant "Wolf At The Door."

The first takes a political load off with its ethical dressing down of a no-gooder who starts trouble at an mutual acquaintance’s nuptials. The song's engaging, entrancing arrangement shows an important side of Radiohead, that of the group who can still get down with simple tunes and pay deep attention to their sonic construction. "Myxomatosis" puts on another face, that of a diseased madman, spewing menacing invective and warning. And the spare, beeseeching "Scatterbrain" is one of the group's most straightforward, beautiful songs in years.

But closer "Wolf At The Door" is simultaneously playful and deadly serious. Yorke self-mockingly sings "get the eggs, get the flan in the face, flan in the face." But at the same time, he says he can't escape the spectre who haunts him, confessing, "I keep the wolf at the door but he calls me on the phone, tells me all the ways he's gonna mess me up / steal all my children if I don't pay the ransom." The song best illustrates the conundrum at the heart of this record. Yes, Radiohead do sound more playful than ever, and their wicked sense of humor is evident throughout. But despite the whimsy and the band's willingness to take itself less seriously, the wolf is still at the door, and he isn't going anywhere.

For an alternate take on this album, click here.

JOHN EVERHART |