Reviews by ikejiri

Let Love Rule
I didn’t really like this. I wasn’t necessarily expecting to dig it but it was way less enjoyable than I thought it might be. I don’t really get the appeal of Kravitz (although he is clearly quite a sexy man in a yoga instructor way), his music just feels pretty anodyne. I did like Are You Gonna Go My Way when I was 13 and it was on NOW 24, but that was before I’d really heard any actually good music.

I generally don’t have a problem with derivative music, but this is derivative in a particularly uninspiring way. He takes from the artists he likes (Prince, Hendrix, Beatles/Sgt Pepper) and just produces wafer thin facsimiles, never capturing whatever it is that actually makes those artists great and filtering it through his own style and coming up with his own take, it just comes out as boring soundalikes. What starts off as tribute becomes a pastiche so weightless and ephemeral that it is weirdly oppressive by about halfway through, especially combined with the ropey hippy dippy platitudes of the lyrics.
It’s not wretched like some of the stuff we’ve had but it is right on the cusp of 1 and 2. I’ll go 2 as I guess it’s heart is in the right place even if it’s pretty moribund. I quite like Mr Cab Driver though.
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Mr Cab Driver

Done By the Forces of Nature
I’ve never listened to this until today, and although I know a few JB tracks I wasn’t really aware of this album and that it is considered one of the classics of Golden Age hip-hop, alongside A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul (who make appearances on Doin’ Our Own Dang)

Being a fan of DLS and ATCQ and Natives Tongues in general, I feel I should really have known about this, as it is an excellent album, right in that late 80s Afro-centric socially conscious hip hip sweet spot. I’ll House You from before this is a great song, and that house influence carries on in places here, What U Waitin’ 4 has a nice house beat and a great synth bass (and a reference to I’ll House You’). There’s also a slight presaging of the west coast sound with the high pitched synth on Belly Dancin’ Dina.

But there’s also some great jazz inflections across it too, as on the title track, as well as some early 80s synth influences, and that hip-hop-house-synth-jazz synthesis gives it a slightly different feel to the other Native Tongues stuff, with a more consistently upbeat dance/party vibe, albeit with similar lyrical themes like on Acknowledge Your Own History and Black Woman.

This has been a great discovery, I’ve listened quite a few times and have looked forward to coming back to it each time. The only thing is that although it’s brilliantly constructed with great samples, the overall sound lacks a bit clarity especially compared to 3 Feet High and Rising and the first two Tribe albums, but that’s a minor quibble, that doesn’t really detract from the overall quality. Was a 4 on first listen but on repeat it just tips over to 5, it’s a great companion to 3 Feet High and Rising and People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
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Playlist submission: Doin’ Our Own Dang

…The Dandy Warhols Come Down
I was quite into the Dandy Warhols, I really liked this album and the two after it, but I can’t have thought about them in about 20 years.

It’s kind of interesting for 1997, although they sound very American and you can hear a bit of alt rock/grunge to it, and it definitely has some Britpopness to it, but it actually feels more like a lot of indie from around 2000 onwards.

They are pretty good at creating a droning, Sonic Youth type groove with layered sounds, as on Be-In, Boys Better, Good Morning and The Creep Out, but they can also write some very catchy melodies - Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth and Everyday Should be a Holiday are great bits of pop music. Cool as Kim Deal is good, and Minnersoter and Hard On for Jesus are decent as well.

But I suppose the issue is that the songs in between those two types, while not bad, either are probably not catchy enough or quite atmospheric or interesting enough, so it feels uneven and does drag in places, eg Orange, I Love You, Whipping Tree, Green and Pete International Airport. It’s also another bloaty CD album at 66 mins.

Overall though it's an enjoyable enough listen with some good songs and a fair amount of filler. I would happily listen again, but I doubt I’d reach for it that frequently, making it a standard issue 3.
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Playlist submission: Everyday Should be a Holiday

Fever Ray
Took me a while to work out how I felt about this one, mainly as it wasn’t quite what I was expecting knowing The Knife and after the first track.

If I Had a Heart is a great opener, kind of medieval moody chanting over a minimally layered electronic landscape, a little bit Bjork with the vocals, setting the album up for some icy-cool Scandinavian/Northern European house inflected electronica with some oomph.

However it stays in that sparse, frosty, heavily Bjork influenced lane, with few of the tracks ever feeling like they get out of 2nd gear, like they never quite blossom into full on bangers, and it all felt like one of those albums that is longer than it actually is.

On further listens I liked it more, and that feeling of never quite exploding is one of its strengths, as it creates a nice bit of tension, the deliberate austereness and constrained atmosphere is actually really engaging, and sprinkled through it are some great tracks and moments. Aside from theIf I Had a Heart I really liked When I Grow Up, Seven, Triangle Walks, Keep the Streets Empty for Me and Stranger to Kindness.

As good as it is at creating that icy atmosphere it definitely does drag towards the end without a great deal of variation, and it does go on about 10 or 15 minutes too long. As it feels more like a suite of music, a tighter, more condensed version would probably be a lot better and feel like a much more self contained experience.

Overall I like it, some of it is excellent, and it is good to work to. It’s very nearly a 4 but it’s length and the loss of focus is a bit of an issue, so I’ll stick it as a high 3.
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Playlist submission: Triangle Walks

Only By the Night
From Aha Shake Heartbreak:
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All the elements are there for something I should like - southern rock style guitars, garagey drums, but its generally a bit nondescript. It’s not objectively bad, it's just not as good as you feel it should be and kind of passes by without anything to make you sit up and notice. Whether it’s the strength of the songs or a general lack of energy I’m not sure.
So overall a handful of good songs and a nice sound, but in the main pretty forgettable but fine. I think that makes a 3, a 2 feels a bit low.
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That mainly holds true for this one, there’s not much I can add really, it’s all competently made and isn’t unlistenable it’s just not that satisfying. Although I did really like Crawl, as that had a nice dirty, swampy groove and muscular weight to it, and is a bit more interesting and memorable than the rest including the big singles. Realistically I’m never going to listen again so I’ll go for a 2.
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Playlist submission: Crawl

The Score
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. When it came out, in the middle of Britpop and with the ubiquity of Killing Me Softly I really didn’t like the Fugees, and by the time I started to get into Hip Hop it ended up passing me by.

I love the sparseness and minimalism of much of the production, and although it seems to be a machine there’s a live sound to the drums and percussion which I really like. There isn’t an overload of samples, it just loops some great moments and motifs, creating some great grooves and they obviously have a great pop sensibility, finding some great hooks in that relative sparseness.

Ready or Not, Fu-Gee-La and Killing Me Softly are of course great bits of pop music. Ready or Not has a great ominous undercurrent and Fu-Gee-La is brilliantly catchy. Aside from those are some other great tracks on here. The little flute loop on How Many Mics is great and the reggae delivery and doo wop samples on Zealots is fantastic, a great track. The Beast is also excellent, the hypnotic bass sample is superb, but it could probably do without the Chinese restaurant bit at the end.
The Mask and Cowboys are great too, another excellent bass sample on The Mask, and Cowboys with its sitar sample is an interesting look at violence and insecurity. And Outro/Manifest covers similar themes with another great sample/hook.

Lyrically I like that they seem to be a progression of the Daisy Age scene, with a little more social grit, but never descending into basic gangsta rap tropes.

It is a bit long, a victim of CD bloat and the always baffling inclusion of skits, but it’s a great album, much better than I was expecting. I wouldn’t quite put it on the same level as say Three Feet High and Rising, or Illmatic, or Kendrick, or Public Enemy, or Wu Tang but it’s a great mid 90s hip hop album. Solid to high 4.
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Playlist submission: The Beast (minus the Chinese Restaurant)

Looking back I wish I’d given Paranoid 5, especially in light of all the awful metal that we’ve had subsequently.

I love the portentous storm and bell ringing sound effects leading into the title track. Like the Paranoid album it treads the fine line between silly and serious (or stupid and clever), being both enjoyable and pompous at the same time, and the song is great, swampy and heavy and then galloping, all propelled by excellent drumming and bass playing. The lyrics are also good - whereas later metal bands used satanic imagery to try and shock in an adolescent edgelord way, here the story is more about the religious fear of evil.

The Wizard in the same vein is great too, and everyone is happy when the wizard walks by. Little bit of Led Zep to Behind the Wall of Sleep but some nice bounce in the bass. NIB is great, some excellent bass again and I like the riff. I didn’t realise that Evil Woman and Warning were covers at first. I don’t know the originals but I like these, they fit the whole vibe well. And Sleeping Village is excellent, a nice bluesy groove, and the slightly middle easter riff is great, and it gives a slightly different feel to the album.

I don’t think it’s quite as good as Paranoid, it definitely feels like the precursor to that album (which in a Beatle-esque manner came out only 6 months later), but it’s still an excellently enjoyable bit of heavy rock, with excellent bass, drums and guitar. If Paranoid should have been a 5 this is an easy 5.
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Playlist submission: Black Sabbath

John Barleycorn Must Die
I used to really like this album, but listening now I’m not sure it’s as good as I remember. Maybe I just loved the song John Barleycorn Must Die and thought it was all in that vein, evocative, pastoral and folky, rather than it being so proggy with jazz inflections.

Glad’s jauntiness wears thin pretty quickly, the piano and organ are great, but I find the groove/riff a bit dull, and the horns and wah wah are on the annoying side of cheesy, before it just drifts away. Freedom Rider is more enjoyable, the bass line is great and I like flutes, but it’s not the most interesting song.

Luckily it picks up with Empty Pages, a great soul inflected track, with a nice bouncy groove and feel. There are some nice moments in Stranger to Himself but overall it’s a little forgettable. JBMD is the standout though, a fantastic version. It’s arranged in a brilliantly simple way, the flute, piano and backing vocals beautifully augmenting the tune. And Every Mother’s Son is another nice blue eyed and bluesy bit of soul to end on.

As with all Traffic albums, Winwood’s vocals and playing are excellent, and it all has a nice, warm sound. But While JBMD is excellent and Empty Pages and Every Mother’s Son are also very good, the rest is extremely skilled but slightly uninspiring jazz-prog-rock, which puts this at a 3.
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Playlist submission: John Barleycorn Must Die

Broken English
I do really like this album, I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for it, despite it obviously sounding a bit dated. But I think it is one of those albums that needs to be taken in context, she was an early adopter of synth/new wave and that paired with her caustic, cracked, scratchy vocals the lyrical bite gives it enough weight beyond the synth-dance-rock surface.

The title track might be the worst culprit for superfluous and dated squelchy R2-D2 noises though, but at least it never goes full Jazz Police (and this was released 10 years before I’m Your Man). Thereafter the synths feel more structural and melodic rather than as mere sound effects.

Witch’s Song is good, much warmer feeling with the acoustic, but I’m not as keen on Brain Drain.
Guilt is great though, it has a bit of a Slow Train Coming vibe and an excellent lyric. The Ballad of Lucy Jordan sounds a lot like We Belong by Pat Benetar to me, but I really like it, it's a great synth-pop version of the song. What’s the Hurry is a nice if slightly forgettable bit of synth rock. I’ve never really been a fan of Working Class Hero as a song, but I quite like this version, particularly as it's more of a tribute than a bit of self-mythology.

And that leaves Why’d Ya Do It. The angular guitar matches the contempt and spite in the vocals and lyrics, and it is great hear her sing dick, fanny, snatch, cunt, bitch and pussy
Right between 3 and 4 - I’ve always enjoyed it, and it’s on the side of 4 for the genuinely scornful lyrics and vocals, and while I like it musically it is hard to escape some of the datedness of the sound, even with context, and that pushes it down to the threes. I think I’ll go 3, I’ll listen again of course, but it’s not one for regular rotation
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Playlist submission: Why’d Ya Do It?

Forever Changes
Actual good 60s stereo mixing!

I’ve never found this quite as good as its reputation suggests, but I do still like it, particularly giving it repeat listens now. It's definitely one of the better summer of love/psychedelic albums, its acoustic-folk underpinning makes it more interesting, enduring and listenable than many of their interminable blues-noodling acid rock peers.

Alone Again Or is of course fantastic and the standout song - a great late 60s hippy lyric, a lovely guitar figure, an excellent string arrangement and brilliant mariachi horns, giving it all a warm, Hot LA sunshine feel.

Aside from Alone Again Or, I do like A House Is Not a Motel, The Daily Planet, Old Man, The Red Telephone, Bummer in the Summer and You Set the Scene, but all the songs are at least decent, with no real stinkers. There’s some great bass playing and tone, I also like that when there is an electric guitar, it is much more of an embellishment, rather than the whole point.

There’s no doubt the songs do share a similar feel though, with string and brass arrangements, but I do like that it sounds like the 60s LA of my imagination that never was - Mexican/hispanic horns, Laurel Canyon/folk guitars, UK influenced Baroque strings and an acid/hippy/love everyone ethos.
Listening to this after listening to the Mothers of Invention albums is also interesting. How they are the opposite sides of the same thing improves them both for me.

This is the most I’ve enjoyed this album after listening now and again over the years, so I’ll put it at a solid 4.
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Playlist submission: Alone Again Or

Elastica
I’ve always liked the well known songs off this, Line Up, Connection, Car Song, Waking Up and while the rest of the album doesn’t quite reach the level of those songs it’s still a very enjoyable wiry, post-punk, Britpop adjacent album. The riffs, bass and drums are very good, and I like Justine’s slightly bored sounding vocals, it suits the aesthetic they are going for well.

However from time to time I do find their schtick a little bit affected, there’s more than a touch of performative cooler than thou iciness, wearing their obvious influences in a slightly hipster way. Plenty of my favourite bands nick stuff from other bands and rip people off, but if talent borrows but genius steals they are definitely on the talent end of that. Connection, while great, is essentially a rather routine rip off 3 Girl Rhumba by Wire, and you can plainly hear more Wire, The Stranglers, Magazine and Blondie (and Spinal Tap at one point).

Having said that, there are no really bad songs, it’s all very listenable (and doesn’t outstay its welcome at 38 minutes), even if it doesn’t linger on the mind too long after listening. I’d happily play it again, although I’m not sure how frequently I’d seek it out, which I think makes it a solid 3.
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Playlist submission: Line Up

Berlin
I liked Transformer, but this feels like a much more fascinating and ambitious album than that, but also a lot more downbeat and despondent, and in parts it feels genuinely sad, as on Kids when you hear the crying children. I suppose if you are going to do a story of two drug addicts it’s likely to end up feeling pretty bleak.

I like the jazzy/cabaret/Weimar vibes to the intro song, building into the sweeping and dramatic but still showtuney Lady Day. The bass on Men of Good Fortune is great, which makes sense as its Jack Bruce, and there are some nice guitar moments too. Caroline Says I and How Do You Think It Feels I really like too, some great horn and guitar on the outro of the latter. But I can only think of our Jim or American Pie with Oh, Jim.

Caroline Says II is a re-working of Stephanie Says, but it’s a great track setting up the fantastic, but sorrowful Kids, whose forlornness and sadness continues with the death of Caroline in The Bed and then Sad Song, both excellent, if mournful tracks.

It definitely works best as a whole album, telling the story, the more upbeat if more prosaic first side leading to the very sad but excellent second side, with the run from Caroline Says II to the strongest track, Sad Song. The string arrangement, circling and swirling as it all ends is absolutely superb

It was a 3 on first listen, but it’s an easy 4 now, the concept, although bleak, is explored to its logical end, the music emphasising the sadness of the story for a downcast but fascinating album.
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Playlist submission: Sad Song

GREY Area
They play LIttle Simz on 6 music quite a bit, but it’s always tended to pass me by a bit, so it’s nice to give this a go.

The first 3 tracks in particular are superb but it’s very good throughout. The drum pattern on Offence, with the excellent bass is fantastic, and I love the flutes and strings. The bass riff on Boss is also great, a proper head nodding beat. I’ve heard Selfish quite a bit without really knowing it, but the hook is great and the jazzy piano driving the rhythm is lovely.

Wounds is a nice downbeat and sad contrast to the ebullience of the first two tracks and the jazziness of Selfish. Venom has a great ominous feel to it and some excellent sexual swear words. 101 FM I’ve definitely heard before, the east Asian inspired synth line is fantastic, and I like its nostalgia themed lyric, it’s only slightly let down by the Giles Peterson sounding DJ bits.

Pressure feels quite Michael Kiwanuka with a nice rapid delivery before the Little Dragon parts. Nice track. Therapy’s good too, nice bass and a very good hook and I like the almost LCD Soundsystem sounding beat of Sherbert Sunset, with more great bass. And then Kiwanuka does appear on Flowers, which is a nice soulful jazzy end to the album.

Delivery-wise she takes a bit of getting used to, but I really like her flow, and lyrically, particularly on Boss, it may not be for the kids of grandparents but I like her point of view and descriptions of her experiences and general ruminations on things.

It’s an easy, solid 4, looking forward to listening to it some more, and the next one after this, which is supposed to be even better.
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Playlist submission: Offence

My Generation
I do like the early Who r’n’b period, this has a charming roughness, both in the recorded sound, which is a bit ropey (especially in comparison to how good Rubber Soul from the same year sounds), and the overall garagey, energetic chaos. I think proto-punk is a bit of a retrospective reach, but it definitely has a nicely abrasive, immediate feel to it.

My Generation and The Kids are Alright are the obvious tracks and they are both excellent. My Generation does suffer from familiarity, but it is a fantastic song. I’ve also always really loved The Good’s Gone with its circular, hypnotic feel. La-La-La Lies is great too, as is Much Too Much with those Beach Boys harmonies (Moon was a huge Beach Boys fan). A Legal Matter and Circles from the US version are great too and I like the wonkiness of The Ox too.. The more bluesy Please, Please, Please and I’m a Man don’t work as well, the Who are definitely better at the r’n’b end of things rather than the blues end, Daltrey doesn’t sound that into it and it ends up being rather unconvincing.

It’s not their greatest album and doesn’t really signpost art-pop they would go to next, or the more involved and concept led late 60s and early 70s peak, but is an excellent snapshot of their early roughshod energy and charm and one of the better examples of a British rock’n’roll take on r’n’b, which for me just edges it into a 4.
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Playlist submission: My Generation

Trans Europe Express
This was the first Kraftwerk album I bought on CD, I’m not sure why I chose this one over The Man Machine, maybe as I already liked the song Trans-Europe Express.

Anyhow I love this album, it’s the perfect step from the coolly electronic and not quite fully formed Autobahn to the (slightly) more humanistic Man Machine. The opening track feels like an adapted for sunday train travel Autobahn, evoking similar feelings of movement and passing through but with a more soothing and meditative ambiance, especially when the choral vocals come in.

Hall of Mirrors and Showroom Dummies I have always found really creepy, but in a good way, I love the concept of the showroom dummies breaking out of their windows and going to a nightclub.

Trans-Europe Express (and Abzug) are a slightly punchier version of Europe Endless, the train rhythm and slightly sinister hook is great and I love the matter of fact, detached description of travelling from Paris to Dusseldorf and meeting David Bowie and Iggy Pop.

Franz Schubert is a really lovely bubbling melody, crossing into the Endless Endless refrain, feeling like a nice satisfying sit down after a long train journey, before it all starts again.

As always with Karftwerk, they are incredible at locating you in a mood and place based purely on repeating electronic rhythms and minimalist melodies. How they create such an immersive and mesmerising sound from seemingly so little is amazing really, and I love how on here many of the refrains and motifs repeat, adding to the slightly hypnotic feel of the whole thing.

Fantastic album, an easy 5.
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Playlist submission: Europe Endless

Savane
Ali Farke Toure is one of those people I’m aware of and have heard quite a bit of through various compilations, but I haven’t ever listened to one of his albums fully.

Anyway I really liked this, the desert blues, the middle eastern inflections, the rhythms, the horns, harmonica, acoustic guitars, and his guitar tone, the words seemingly dipping in and out of Arabic and French, it all feels very evocative of a place I’ve never been with a beautiful stateliness and warmth. On some listens I just let the whole thing warmly wash over me like and on others I paid closer attention.

Songhoy Blues was the other Desert Blues album we’ve had and I really liked it, but that felt more youthful and energetic, whereas this felt older and more comfortable. Maybe it’s because Savane sounds a bit like What Good Am I or something from Oh Mercy, but I get the same feeling that albums gives me, kind of ruminative and contemplative, but also with a sense of being at ease (even though I don’t know what he’s singing about).

I enjoyed pretty much every track, but the run of Beto-Savane-Soya-Penda Yoro is great, and I really liked the folk-ish desert blues of Soya. Hanana I liked too, the arabic fiddle, tabla percussion and drone is great, very charmingly hypnotic. N’jarou is great too, the rhythmic brass and guitar together are lovely.

It’s a lovely, meandering, charming album, like gentle waves of lovely warm water lapping over your feet on a lovely sunny beach - solid 4.
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Playlist submission: Soya

Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake
Despite being a big fan of Small Faces for numerous reasons they never really managed to make one consistently good, solid album and their discography is a bit all over this place with UK and US versions mashing things together. And this one is a funny one too, one side feeling a bit like a collection of r’n’b-blues-psychedelia and music hall odds and sods (albeit with some excellent songs), and then the other side a fairy tale concept album, (again with some great songs). But I always wished they’d either done the whole album around the concept of Happiness Stan and incorporated things like Long Ago and Worlds Apart, Song of a Baker, Lazy Sunday and Afterglow into it, or done an album of standalone tracks with those songs and Rollin’ Over

I love Ronnie’s bass sound on the title track and it’s an excellent swirling bluesy psychedelic instrumental. Afterglow is superb, up there with Tin Soldier as a brilliantly strained r’n’b/rock’n’roll song. Long Ago and Worlds Apart is a nicely atmospheric psychedelic jam with some r’n’b touches. Rene takes the cockney knees up of Lazy Sunday too far, it’s not a pleasant listen. Song of a Baker is one of those great punchy, muscularly soulful SF rock songs and surely the template for much of Moseley Shoals. Lazy Sunday I oscillate on, sometimes I find it charming and at other times too trite.

I love the Stanley Unwin interlocutions, and the story Happiness Stan is a classic bit of 60s psychedelic concept and it’s nicely told via Stanley Unwin and the suite of songs. Happiness Stan itself is the kind of easily parodied 60s track, but the remaining tracks are great. Rollin’ Over is an excellent, grooving track and The Hungry Intruder is nice in a pseudo-fantastical way with some nice flute. The Journey is fine, but Mad John is excellent in a dramatic semi-folky way before more Cockney knees up on the last track.

Overall a bit of a mixed bag, a slightly mismatched collection of songs and themes masquerading as an album, but it has some really excellent songs in Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake, Afterglow, Long Agos and Worlds Apart, Song of a Baker, Rollin’ Over and Mad John and a pleasingly 60s concept on the 2nd side. Between 3 and 4 again, and again I’ll tip into 4, mainly for sentimental reasons.
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Playlist submission: Afterglow

Fun fact, I once had an email correspondence with Ian McLagan after he put his email address in the back of his autobiography back in the early 2000s. Simpler times

Wild Gift
A short, fun and entertaining punky album that nimbly sidesteps 3 chord thrash, bringing in some very enjoyable surf, powerpop, rockabilly and bluesy influences as well as some nice guitar licks and riffs.

It’s full of some great little moments across some very good songs, I love that little bass riff in The Once Over Twice, the almost reggae lope of Adult Books, the chorus of Universal Corner, the riff of It’s Who You Know, the licks and bass of In This House I Call Home, the groove of White Girl, the rockabilly scratchiness of Beyond and Back, the catchiness of When Our Love Passed out on the Couch, the Beach Boys, hanclappy, Chuck Berry powerpop of Year 1.

It’s right on the cusp of 3 and 4. It’s definitely a superior version of this type of album, and I can hear its echoes in lots of contemporaneous bands like the Ramones, Stiff Little Fingers and The Clash, as well as lots of bands that came later, particularly The Strokes. I think I’ll tip to a 4 - I’ll definitely come back to it if I’m in the mood for 30 minutes of very enjoyable and influential punk adjacent fun.
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Playlist submission: Year 1

Little Earthquakes
Just because you can make me come, doesn’t mean you're Jesus
Wise words.

I really liked this, but I’m struggling to think of a great deal to say about it.
Apart from the cabaret excursion of Happy Phantom and the unconvincing bluesy-quirk of Leather there are no bad songs and there are some great songs; Crucify, Girl, Precious Things, Winter, China and in the duo of Me and a Gun and Little Earthquakes it has an emotional charge and frankness that is incredibly affecting and harrowing - the reverb heavy crassfade to Little Earthquakes is superb

It feels a bit reductionist to make the comparison but I suppose Kate Bush is the obvious touchstone, particularly on something like Girl, but her emotional frankness and directness makes her quite unique.

It’s on the border of 3 and 4, but I think those final two tracks being as great as they are just push it into a 4.
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Playlist submission: Little Earthquakes

Hail To the Thief
Along with Amnesiac I tend to overlook this album in their post OK Computer era, I always gravitate towards Kid A, In Rainbows, The King of Limbs or Moon Shaped Pool instead.

That’s because this does feel long at nearly an hour, and while taken individually they are actually very good songs, Sail To The Moon and We Suck Young Blood sound very similar tonally and tempo-wise. Sail To The Moon is actually lovely and the chords and backing vocals on We Suck Young Blood are great as well, but along with the other similar sounding pair of I Will and Scatterbrain, and the interesting but relatively throwaway The Gloaming they colour the album with a sense of dirge and ponderousness.

Despite that, there are superb songs on here. 2+2= 5 is one of their best post OK Computer rockers, the arpeggiated (my how they love arpeggios in this period) intro leading to the release of some pent up chaos, the pulsing Backdrifts is excellent and I love the time signature changes and guitar bursts of Go To Sleep. Where I End and You Begin is also excellent, the bass groove and drum pattern are great, a bit Can/Faust, and I love the scratchy guitar. There, There is, along with Go To Sleep, probably the most conventional track and it is very good, the bass under the toms and guitar is delicious. A Punchup At a Wedding I absolutely love, one of my favourite Radiohead songs. The piano and bass are superb, giving it a real hypnotic groove. Myxomatosis is excellent too, I love the drum pattern and synth bass parts. A Wolf At the Door is very good too.

I don’t think it’s quite on the same level as Kid A, In Rainbows, The King of Limbs or A Moon Shaped Pool, or OK Computer. The same tense, fraught sensibility behind their best stuff is here, but combined with the overall length and slightly plodding, similar sounding nature of some of the slower songs it does feel a bit one note in places, and it does drag a little. Despite that it’s still a great record with some absolutely brilliant songs, an album that few other bands could match. If it was someone else it probably would be a 5, but, fairly or unfairly, I think I hold them to a higher standard, so I’ll go a very high 4, even though that does feel a bit penurious.
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Playlist submission: A Punchup at a Wedding
Ps it’s worth listening to the Com Lag 2+2=5 EP from this period, there’s, I think, a slightly better version of I Will and an excellent track called Paperbag Writer.