Hail to the Thief

'You have not been paying attention.' Contrary to his detractors, Yorke is not a whiner, a moper, or even a lamenter: he's a nuanced and perpetual droner, a strangely aloof and not very emotional castaway. Unfortunately, he's also a very bad poet, pretentious and threadbare at the same time. When the band decides the write a song, as they do w/ 'Go To Sleep,' they are tolerable and moderately successful. When they do not, which is the case w/ much of Hail To The Thief, they're pretty unbearable. It's the worst Radiohead I've heard (I haven't listened to The King of Limbs) b/c it's not even remotely fun: 'Why so green / And lonely, and lonely / And lonely.' Ya know, I can dig the darkness, just not the weary or densely drab. Faugh!

Some other reviewer noted, there is absolutely great Radiohead and then there is unlistenable falsetto draining on Radiohead

Ahh the Gen X output of the EMI / Abbey Road posh boy band cookie cutter. At least unlike their Boomer predecessors (Pink Floyd) and Millennial successors (Coldplay) Radiohead at least approach their music with some spirit of adventure.

So here there’s a bit of dub step and electric trickery, and Thom Yorke tries to channel late period Scott Walker. However it would be far more fulfilling to listen to Burial or Tilt.

Pretty cool.

eu não consigo superar a voz do thom yorke. eu acho que eh isso que não me deixa gostar de radiohead, viu.

no mais, tem umas boas. tem outras que ele só fica gemendo na sua orelha com barulhos eletrônicos de fundo. as boas são bem legais, na real!

Similar to my In Rainbows review I often find it hard to understand what Thom is saying. It's a stylistic choice and not on every track but I'm not reading lyrics to understand what someone is trying to say.

Overall it's a hit and miss album, some big highs followed by lows. I liked it but it definitely runs too long, 2-3 weaker tracks could have been cut. I preferred In Rainbows overall which was a 4 so I'm going 3.5/5. Raising to 4.

This one will be a hard one to review. Not because I don't like Radiohead - on the contrary I think they are great because they are doing their own thing, sound like no one else, draw from a wide range of influences and are not afraid to experiment. I feel like this is not the sort of music you can listen once or twice and form a good opinion. My experience with them only goes as far as OK Computer, Kid A, Bends and In Rainbows all of which I love a lot. It took me quite a few times to get In Rainbows, so I suspect this one will take some time to soak in as well.

From the first full listen I love the influence of drone and krautrock which induces hypnotic, relaxed state of mind. Not too many songs instantly stand out however it's about vibe. So far this is easily strong 4.0/5.0, but will need to REVISIT in the future.

Just felt whiney as hell

Radiohead just makes interesting music. This is more electronic but still really enjoyable (I'm a bigger fan of earlier Radiohead, hence -1, but it is better than a lot of 4* albums on here).

I don't like Radiohead, and I don't have to. And it's mostly because I don't like Thom Yorke as a singer.

Once again, on this album, he's just not singing well, and I don't like it. It makes the music hard for me to listen to. I like plenty of experimental music, but when it comes to Radiohead they just seem to ignore giving the audience anything to hold onto which bears any resemblance to non-experimental music. What do I mean by that? Radiohead are described as being a rock band, at least at some level. But where's the rock? This is so far outside rock, and everything else for that matter, that it's just tough to find a way into understanding it. Any other band that cites Radiohead as an influence often has much more of a rock underpinning, with experimental elements, and the results are much more enjoyable. With Radiohead, their albums regularly feel almost completely forgettable as result. Even when they come close to something more enjoyable as normal music, that's when Thom's singing is even worse. I don't see a point in listening to this again.

I consider it a minor tragedy that a band that can make an album so accomplished, so poignant as the Bends can think that just saying the word "raindrops" (in Sit Down/Stand up) repetitively is interesting.

The concept of rain as refreshing, cleansing, and melancholic has been completely unused here.

Rainy Days and Mondays, Here comes the Rain Again, hell, even Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head have better lyrics than some of the so called songs here.

And while some of the melodies towards the end of the album are acceptable I am left listless and bored. All I can do is hope for a thunderstorm to invigorate me.

Radiohead still doing Radiohead

I've mentioned before that OK Computer was the last Radiohead album I really liked before they got fully Weird with a capital W. As I listened to the first couple of tracks, I thought, "Here we go again." How wrong I was. At first, I just appreciated a lot of the songs that were based in regular instruments rather than electronica (e.g., Sail to the Moon, Go to Sleep, A Punchup at a Wedding), but it was on repeat listens that I started to get pulled into more and more tracks (incl. Myxomatosis and A Wolf at the Door). I was busy this week and it took a while to get to a close listen, but I was already clearly at a 4 for the album by then. Then, I did my close listen and frankly was blown away by how much better the album was when paying close attention. The lyrics are sheer poetry and horror - the sense of foreboding throughout the album is palpable. It's a shame Thom Yorke doesn't enunciate well when he sings (and I know he's capable - that always irks me) because the lyrics are outstanding. Every single song hit me on close listen, so much that I'm not even going to list "favorite tracks" (but a few that really hit me for the first time during the close listen included Where I End and You Begin, We Suck Young Blood, and The Gloaming and if I had to pick one track to call a favorite it would be A Wolf at the Door). Simply put, this is an amazing album - can't believe they pulled this from the book - I slept on this one and I'm glad the 1001 got me to give it another chance.

Essential? Not really, when Radiohead have plenty of superior albums already on the list. This one is a little under-produced and lacking focus. Nevertheless, it has plenty of variety and the performances are stellar as usual with Radiohead.

I tried to listen to this multiple times, it isn't bad, but nothing in it really draws me in or makes me want to listen to it again.

4.5

2+2 actually equals 4 and that’s all the stars you’re getting. Do better next time Thom

This was more enjoyable than I thought it would be. But it's sometimes noisy but not in the best kind of way. Would probably relisten

The vocals suck

This does really well at combining the cold electronics of Kid A and Amnesiac with the more rock oriented sound of The Bends. Great album cover too. Favorites are 2 + 2 = 5, Go To Sleep, We Suck Young Blood, A Punch Up At A Wedding, Myxomatosis, and A Wolf At The Door.