If there ever is a band that courts attention from diehard music aficionados from around the world, it has to be Radiohead.
 The band hit a particular note in their landmark record OK Computer and has since then taken music very seriously. It was a record that established Radiohead as the world’s biggest art band, according to the New York Times. Their recipe for making music includes transcendent lyrics (the more abstract, the better), nervous and edgy rhythms (predictability to a minimum), with a healthy sprinkle of various electronic noises (if it makes a noise, let’s hear it).
And King of Limbs is no different.
The opener track ‘Bloom’ is a mess. But it’s a good mess of beats, grinding rhythms, pulsing percussions and nonsensical lyrics. This isn’t as much of a music track as much as it’s the listener standing on the precipice of a world created by the band. This is where you enter the album. You have been warned.
Things take an interesting turn when we come to the second track, ‘Morning Mr Magpie’. We hear the all too familiar guitar mumbling away with Thom Yorke at his finest. He croons his way throughout the beat and the guitar. The beat again is much of a clutter as it was in the previous track, but again it’s a mess in its own way and a good one at that.
‘Little by Little’ is actually where things start looking more of a classic Radiohead sound. And by classic I mean linear song structure, familiar instruments, but there’s an overall flavor to King of Limbs and it’s most obvious on this track. It’s natural. It’s organic. Much like the cover of the album provided by artist Stanley Donwood; which are European folk talks and how they’re set in forests and woods.
‘Feral’ is more of a freeform sketch rather than a complete track. At just past three minutes, it’s a track that starts late but has tremendous depth in terms of sounds and characteristics. The bass weaves itself in and out amidst a noise of vocals and volume spliced together. Only Radiohead could make an incomplete sketch sound complete and comprehensive at the same time.
‘Lotus Flower’ begins with a bass drone and a person clapping. At some point in time and you really can’t tell when, the song starts. By then you’re knee deep into it and the lyrics begin. Again, more of classic Radiohead here, this song (minus the electronic on it) could have very well been on the first Radiohead album, Pablo Honey.
 Codex’ starts off deceptively; it’s like back in the day of cassette players where a track would start and then be cut off by another track overdubbed on it. ‘Codex’ could have been a sequel to ‘Karma Police’ but it isn’t. The song, whilst being bluntly depressive, has a beauty about it. Perhaps it’s the simple piano. Perhaps it’s the way the lyrics are sung. Perhaps it’s just Radiohead doing what they do best.
‘Give up the Ghost’ is where Radiohead hit a crescendo in the album. The track continues off from where ‘Codex’ left us, in a forest. Quite literally, the song starts off with samples of sounds of the forest. Perhaps the band wanted to enunciate the folkish sound of this particular track. Or perhaps this is the most organic sounding Radiohead song ever.
The last track, ‘Separator’, is also the longest track on the album. At just over five minutes and 20 seconds, it pretty much sums up the entire album. It’s also perhaps the most organized song in this seven track album. It sounds complete, it has structure, it has purpose. The vocals here are also tamed and don’t stab you in the back out of nowhere.
At just over 37 minutes this is the shortest Radiohead album yet. But the band is probably the most faithful to its fans and has made sure that they will enjoy what they hear. This probably isn’t the best of albums to listen to if you’ve never heard the band before--try Pablo Honey or OK Computer before you get down to this.
King of Limbs isn’t something to be gulped down. This is a record to be savored and relished. Repeat listens will give many different interpretations of the music here and some new opinions too perhaps. In the end, this is exactly the sort of album you’d expect out of Radiohead. It’s not radical, it’s not earth shattering, and it’s not something that will change music as you know it. It’s only Radiohead. That’s not a statement to be taken lightly because Radiohead is the only band that even remotely tries to make music. Compared to them, everything else is just sound that drones on |
