Radiohead were not the first band to release their music digitally or free of charge. But to put it simply, they were the first band of international significance. Such was the reaction on the 1st October when a short blog post from guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, signalled the bands intentions for new download-only release, In Rainbows.
"Hello everyone.
Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in 10 days;
We've called it In Rainbows. Love from us all."
If the shock announcement of an imminent album wasn't enough, it was the pricing and distribution structure that would raise the coyest eyebrows. And so it did. There is no label and it has no price.
You, the music fan, decide how much you want to pay for the record. It could be a penny, or ten, or £99.99. With the dawn of a new era, Radiohead laid down the gauntlet to record labels. But how would the album stack up?
If OK Computer was the band's glorious ascendancy to the throne of "greatest rock band in the world", Kid A was their disillusioned abdication of the throne in favour of sonic soundscapes and electronic weirdness. Two albums on, one less record deal, and the band find themselves searching for an identity in 2007. It can only be the greatest accolade that these seasoned veterans have been handed a genre of their own.
Incase you were in any doubt, the new album
is every bit worthy of the media storm that it's ignited.
...So this is the new Radiohead sound. 15 Step belts to life with a tribal bassline and thrashing claps before Yorke makes himself heard. Gone is the vocal distortian of the Kid A era. The lead singer resonates a sound closer to his solo work on The Eraser. "How come I end up where I started? How come I end up where I belong?" Perhaps a telling sign as the band pull off a storming opener, somehow eluding their former work and redefining a fresh sound once again.
Bodysnatchers is a pscyhedelic journey with more than it's fair share of political undertones and a bridge to remember. This has all the pomp of Hail to the Thief's memorable opener, but the sound is fuzzy and at times it seems as if Greenwood has plugged his artillery in to a kiddie's practice amp. "I don't know what I'm talking about" snipes Yorke before a climax that's guaranteed to turn crowds mental when the band next tour.
You could be mistaken for assuming that Radiohead had gone all punk, but we're brought down to earth with arguably the standout track of In Rainbows.
After the first listen, Nude hits you like a tonne of bricks. After several, you can't help but feel that it's destined to become what Exit Music was for OK Computer. Introduced by choral mourns and some dreamy ooh'ing and ahh'ing, the vocals are as haunting as they are beautiful. "Don't get any big ideas, they're not gonna happen," we're begged over a rock steady and understated drum beat. Credit has to go to Jonny Greenwood's oustanding composition and also to Yorke who reminds the world with one truly hair-raising climax that nobody does a ballad like Radiohead
Having been kicking around for the best part of a decade, it would have been understandable had Nude managed to disappoint the fans who've waited ten years to hear a studio version. Somehow it triumphs.
Arpeggi/Weird Fishes is next. Fishes, you say? I didn't know it was a word either, but that's what we all are according to Yorke. Debuted quite some time ago on the live circuit, Arpeggi has retained its uplifting rhythm through a lush acoustic guitar and some flattering harmonies. It all builds towards a cry of escapism. Keeping with the album's dense sound, Arpeggi floats through your speakers like a little underwater charm.
All I Need continues the romanticism of the record, although the band have succeeded in turning what should be an acoustic lullaby in to a threatening beast of a sound. There are more flashbacks to 1997 with both the scary drums of Climbing up the Walls and the sweet glockenspiel of No Surprises merging together and somehow co-existing. At times, it does give the impression that the 'Head are going through the motions and toying with their past work (who wouldn't?). But the production is so first-class, the arrangements so precise, it's hard to fault a band that churns out a sound as faultless as this.
After a furious opening twenty minutes, Faust Arp provides the typical Radiohead mid-album breather. But to call this an interlude would be an injustice to some of Greenwood's finest work on the strings. It sounds like a boiled down version of A Wolf at the Door - one that froths without ever threatening to truly spill over.
Up next we have the song that was expected to rattle and clatter like a post-9/11 Electioneering. Reckoner will disappoint or overwhelm in equal measure, depending on what you were expecting. Far from the blazing guitars that the die-hards had in mind, an industrial clatter keeps this in-line with the In Rainbows mould. Yorke caps a seal on it and unleashes a soaring emotional vocal that would probably define the career of a lesser singer. It's a gorgeous ballad, but at the price of a stadium swinging anthem you feel.
House of Cards is another gentle number with some of the most direct lyrics in Post-Bends Radiohead times. "I don't want to be your friend, I just want to be your lover." Where did that come from?! Somewhere Chris Martin is wishing his three albums of crooning could have been simplified as expertly as this. "Denial, denial," pleads the lead singer to the steady coo that "Your ears must be burning" and some soft backing vocals.
If Kid A and Amnesiac were loveless behemoths, In Rainbows injects a welcome dose of romance to prove that maybe the band are mellowing with age. Rarely has Yorke been heard to emote so freely and this is the sound of a band that's comfortable in its own environment.
Jigsaw Falling in to Place lifts the tempo and feels like the first full-band piece in a while. It's default contemporary rock, but executed well with a rising vocal. Far from being a classic, Jigsaw proves that the quintet still know how to nail a traditionally structured tune.
In traditional Radiohead style, the record is drawn to close with a freakishly strange culmination of all that's come before it. Videotape, originally debuted as an ascending piano-driven number, plods through the speakers as Phil Selway explores one of the most eclectic drum beats of his career. Think a haunted attic or a rattling horse cart in the dead of night. Yorke adopts a hurt if controlled vocal to deliver a poignant tale that this is his only way to say goodbye. We can only hope he's playing with us.
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