Before I say anything about why The King of Limbs is a terrific record, one deserving the heaps of accolades it's already getting from the music press, let's talk about why Radiohead really is the best rock band in the world.
Music nerds like me love to heap platitudes on our favorite bands -- high praise that's impossible to prove and often meant more as provocation than anything else. When you say something's the best, or the worst, you're setting yourself up for vigorous debate. I think Radiohead, though, is as close to an honest-to-god perfect rock band as any in the history of rock and pop music.
Since the band's 1995 sophomore guitar rock masterpiece, The Bends, Radiohead has stayed ahead of its peers with records that seem like they've been sent backwards from the future. Each one, in its time, was like listening to what music would sound like five years later. But not only is the band restlessly progressive, they are uncompromising. They record records they want to hear. Just so happens that they have a great fan base that respects that and can keep up.
Each album the band makes pursues a consistent artistic vision as well as any band I've ever heard. The band's records define new possibilities in song and sound for other rock bands. Yet in doing so, the band has crafted a sound that is distinctly its own. No matter what new course it charts, a Radiohead record sounds immediately like Radiohead. The band composes whole albums like novels. Radiohead records build tension and resolve it musically, almost as if they were composing great narratives.
Because of that tradition, and a discography of nearly flawless recordings, Radiohead enjoys an artistic atmosphere like no other band. They have artistic capital to spend. They are able to release a small, interesting statement like The King of Limbs and find a listening audience.
Yorke said in an interview, not long after In Rainbows, that another record might literally kill the band. At the time he was considering giving up the album form and sticking to smaller, more frequent EPs. King of Limbs is more than that, though. Unlike Amnesiac, a good record, but one that still felt a bit like it was a collection of what didn't make Kid A, The King of Limbs really feels completely coherent. There's not a second of sound that doesn't belong. If In Rainbows is the band's sprawling novel, King of Limbs is a flawlessly edited novella.
King of Limbs is indeed small. That doesn't mean it is less. It is not a huge, sweeping collection like OK Computer, Hail to the Thief or In Rainbows. It is not a record intended for the arena. It's a sound that made In Rainbows sound so much different. Sure, that album had its guitar numbers, but the songs had less reverberating atmosphere than Radiohead of the past. It sounded as if the instruments were plugged directly into the studio board. King of Limbs is even more quiet. It's an album of earphone gems: eight intimate, largely electronic tracks in which the guitars -- and Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien are as skilled a set of six-string players as you'll find anywhere -- are relegated mostly to supporting roles in a mix that is much more about rhythm, melody and atmosphere.
(One of Radiohead's greatest strengths as a rock band is that its guitarists aren't dedicated to filling every recorded second with themselves. The band is about the song first, even if it means Greenwood and O'Brien are playing percussion or noodling around with laptops. They aren't afraid to put the guitars down if the song calls for it.)
As is the band's habit, King of Limbs begins with tempo and tension. "Bloom" starts the record with a wicked drum loop that sounds as if it's barely holding together while keys, bass and synth sounds percolate around it and Yorke's usual killer gift for otherworldly melody hovers above. Lots of critics have made comparisons to disjointed dance music. To me, particularly the bass line, it sounds a lot closer to Miles Davis' Bitches Brew than anything I'd call dance music. Whatever you want to call it, it's a compelling statement: "You're about to hear a different kind of Radiohead record."
The rhythmic pace of the record prevails here through the next three songs. "Good Morning Morning Mr. Magpie" is a fast-paced, break beat of staccato guitar. "Little by Little" is more subtle but features a slow, ascending chord pattern over what almost sounds like an afro-cuban percussion section. The gurgling electro-track "Feral" is perhaps the loosest tune, here. It's almost a sonic coda, a transition, in which Yorke sings less, sticking instead to incoherent vocal sounds.
The second half of the record locks into stuff that sounds more song-like. Fist is the single, "Lotus Flower," the "danciest" track here -- it's all drum loops and keys. It also has Yorke's catchiest chorus.
"Lotus Flower" is followed by the somber, beautiful piano ballad, "Codex"and the haunting, acoustic "Give up the Ghost." The album ends with the very strong "Separator," perhaps one of my favorite album closers from these guys in a long time. It's a simple, bouncy drum, bass and keys song in which a bit of almost-familiar, Radiohead brand of shimmering guitars build in the end.
The King of Limbs might be smaller Radiohead, and it is Radiohead that does not strike me as essential as OK Computer, In Rainbows or Hail to the Thief, yet it is a coherent and masterful work, one best released as a whole album, not simply a B-sides release or singles collection (Radiohead has perhaps the greatest collection of B-Sides in the history of rock. Go and find the My Iron Lung EP, How's My Driving and Com+Lag to get just a taste if you have only the studio albums).
More interestingly, King of Limbs is a look at the kind of record we might expect from big bands in the future -- smaller and more frequent releases that are available online first. If we are indeed on the verge of a a real digital age for the biggest artists in music, Radiohead is showing us all how its going to be done.
Very nice article, loved it. And right on about Radiohead's place in the world of music.
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