Radiohead – The King of Limbs
And we’re off.
Opening with Bloom - which sounds at first like the theme music for Casualty or some other hospital-based TV show – the initial sound of the album feels ominous, but this is very quickly overtaken by the glowing sound of a repeated, circular echo in the background. High in the mix the band has chosen to put the marching beat. It lands slightly across the rest of the production. So, a dichotomy already, with the gloaming production set against this fairly measured, dictatorial strait-jacket beat.
A theme - one that will become familiar as the album progresses - is introduced to us early on; the idea of water and all things aquatic which are referenced in a number of other songs. After tipping their hat to their newly-published newspaper, the ‘universal sigh’, Thom Yorke goes on to sing of the ocean blooming. This song then, in its theme and aura seems to be paying some homage to their previous record, In Rainbows. Track 4 from that album, Weird Fishes, was dominated by positive, sun-drenched ocean-gazing and Bloom could potentially be considered its step sister. As Thom Yorke’s falsetto rises in the melody at one point, it is reminiscent of a similar passage in Nude from In Rainbows. It feels quite the delight to experience this new Radiohead album – or indeed any Radiohead album – with an opening track so radiant and positive, even if tinged with a little melancholy.
Before we’ve had time to recover from such a strikingly rich and resonant opener, we are thrown headfirst into Morning Mr Magpie. This track, with its minimalist, stubby cyclic guitar patterns and Yorke singing like a peeved schoolboy (‘you stole it all, give it back’), is more like the opener from In Rainbows, ‘Body Snatchers’, aggressive and brooding. Whilst the chorus melody here is sing-song-y in part and quite the tease, there is undoubtedly a dark cloud hanging over that simply can’t be ignored...even more so as the track swells in the middle and sounds like it’s close to combustion.
A funky, dark number is Track 3, ‘Little by Little’, not dissimilar to ‘Down is the new up’ from the B Sides of In Rainbows. The band continue with the conflict of echoing vagueness in the production against Jonny Greenwood’s guitar stabs and counter melodies which are stark and high in the mix. There’s something seedy about the way Thom sings this melody, sliding down in playful semitones to the lyrics ‘little by little, by hook or by crook, I’m such a tease and you’re such a flirt’.
Radiohead adopt a contemporary production style for Feral, the fourth track from the album. Aptly titled, given that any vocals the track does have are basically unintelligible and are the result of the band having chopped up and distorted Yorke’s voice. The result is an animalistic, rudimentary soundscape with possible tips to Burial in the backing tunnel-channelled bassy vocals. Perhaps no surprise, given Thom Yorke recently collaborated on a track with Burial and Kieran Hebden (Four Tet). Much of the production on the album up to this point has been spunky and contemporary, with the tempo of urgency and vitality. More than anything, the previous three tracks have sounded extremely urban.
Track 4 is the first single from the album, Lotus Flower. There is a change here, with Yorke opting for a more classic melody, fitting in more lyrics rather than snapping statements here and there that we’ve become used to. This track is certainly much more diatonic than its predecessor, Feral. Notice in the chorus a real sense of vulnerability in Yorke’s voice, struggling at the top ends of his falsetto above the melancholic sevenths that otherwise permeate. Typically, Yorke returns on this track with a real clawing melody that can only serve to tug on the heart strings in all its yearning. The close of Lotus Flower marks the beginning of a new vibe in this album, which is omnipresent in the piano based Track 6, Codex.
Codex is so full of plaintive emotion that it’s quite difficult to write anything about it without sounding sickeningly earnest. We’ve been transported to Venus in this track so it seems, with ultra feminine, understated production providing a quiet backdrop for Yorke’s voice to take centre stage for the first time in the album to this extent. This track signals a very sudden and dramatic shift in gear on the album that feels almost a touch jarring and could be considered a little premature. It seems that Radiohead manage to get away with it simply due to the fact Codex is quite simply stunningly moving and meditative. At the close of this circular track, we have been whole-heartedly sucked in. Mesmeric, Yorke uses his voice for what it does best...allowing you to trust in it, he convinces ‘no one gets hurt’. The echoing brass intertwines its counter-melody so it, along with Yorke’s voice, becomes a graceful, poised elegy.
Moreover, Codex marks a return to the water theme of the opener, Bloom. Yorke sings ‘the water’s clear and innocent’. This painfully simple song slowly introduces itself as a welcome break from the angles that drove the beginning of the album and it seems we’ve left the urban sprawl behind and find ourselves emerging from a darkness.
We emerge musically into Give Up The Ghost which could be pinned as a country song on first hearing. Sweet major key signals a return of plain positivity, like the arrival of a peaceful morning but Yorke still appears wary, repeating the line ‘don’t hurt me’ as a backing vocal that is present throughout the entire track. This track, as well as the final track, Separator, signals the calm after the storm, and rarely do we have the pleasure of hearing Radiohead so content.
And so it is we move into the closing track of the album, Separator, which kicks off with a no- nonsense driven beat. At this point, the album starts to make sense as a conceptual work of art. It seems that we have witnessed a problem, and since that point we have experienced it in all its glory/turmoil, before dealing with it and now we pull ourselves round and set out again with determination but without the baggage of too much heavy emotion. It feels like reaching some sort of acceptable peace in circumstances otherwise out of our control.
In a sense, I can’t help but feel that I’ve come away from this album feeling slightly perplexed... in comparison with previous albums which have contained real stand out, genre defining tracks, it doesn’t feel like The King Of Limbs measures up in quite the same way. Bloom, Lotus Flower and Codex are undoubtedly beautifully crafted songs, and much of the surrounding tracks are stunning dance-based production gems which can’t be ignored but there is no Pyramid Song, no Reckoner, no Everything In Its Right Place, no Idioteque (and the list could go on).
But therein, perhaps, lies the real point of this album, the real worth of The King Of Limbs. It symbolises some sort of journey; a quasi-spiritual one at that. Taken as a whole and as it should, as a piece of work comprising seven tracks, it is still forward thinking, contemporary, genuine and bold. Furthermore, it is also tinged with melancholy and emotion, thus carrying weight in both its humanity and technicality – elements simply vital to its affect and to the effect of any music of worth.
Maybe expectations were cruel and we were expecting a new Amnesiac or something branching into further new territory? For after all, Radiohead are the band that we often all desperately rely on for this kind of progression whilst retaining accessibility. In essence, The King Of Limbs hasn’t moved too far from the sound and ambience that comprised In Rainbows. But the real point here is that the music we discover on this album would almost certainly be considered extremely unique, ballsy and thoughtful had it been released by a new kid on the block. It is all too easy to undervalue the innovation and guts on The King Of Limbs because – and in some ways, unfortunately – we have come to expect nothing less from Radiohead.
