On Friday, Radiohead released their new album for download. I bought it, and had every intention of playing it and writing up a quick review. And then after my first listen, I didn’t have a lot to say except “well, that’s really pretty”. So, now it’s a week later, and I’ve been listening to it over and over, growing to love it and attempting to find words for a record that’s so slow to reveal itself.
At first, I simply didn’t notice many specific details. The songs flowed together on initial listening, making one big 38 minute tapestry of noises and textures and themes. Then, the second time through, a couple snatches of melody peeked out and got me to stop and relisten to a couple songs. The sounds are a delicate mix of electronic and acoustic, computers used to blur and echo the vocals, plucked guitar and chattering percussion loops swirling together with keyboard drones and Disney-esque strings.
If I’m to believe things I read on the internet (always a risky proposition), the record is named for a thousand-year-old oak tree, and that context makes a lot of sense… These songs could be easily linked to generations of British folk music, in feel and mood: pretty, melancholic, gossamer, songs of countrysides and woods and fogged-over hollows. It’s a slow-burning piece of work, one that, like the fairy tales it evokes, reveals new levels the longer you live with it in the back of your head. It’s a less jittery Radiohead than before, finding human sensation in nursery rhymes and darkened forests instead of claustrophobia and disaffections of the modern day.
In short, it’s a haunting and intimate work from an act that everyone seems to expect sweeping gestures from, one that unlocks more detail and greater mysteries with repeated listening; not a record to stroll through, but to get lost inside.
It might just end up being my favorite of their records. I’m not sure, but I’ll figure it out in time. I’ll be listening to — and getting lost in — this music for a long while yet.
Radiohead’s “The King Of Limbs” is available for purchase here.