Review: With King of Limbs, Radiohead Deals a Deathblow to the ‘Album’
- By Caleb Garling
- February 24, 2011 |
- 7:00 am |
- Categories: music
Radiohead’s The King of Limbs represents a significant departure in both style and substance from In Rainbows and, ultimately, the idea of “a complete album.”
The new release shifts the band’s definition of the concept, and Radiohead’s industry clout may level a lethal blow to the relics of the LP era.
For loyal fans, it begs the question whether the five Brits are, intentionally or not, simplifying the concept and whether there is more to come soon. The King of Limbs comes in at just 38 minutes and eight tracks. Is it incomplete or — more interestingly — a prelude?
Lead singer Thom Yorke commented on the task of assembling albums in 2009. “It worked with In Rainbows, because we had a real fixed idea about where we were going,” he told The Believer magazine.
“But we’ve all said that we can’t possibly dive into that again. It’ll kill us.” Later in the interview, he added, “In Rainbows was a particular aesthetic, and I can’t bear the idea of doing that again. Not that it’s not good, I just can’t … bear … that.”
While Yorke is never short on dramatics, he doesn’t mince words, either. The abrupt creation of “Harry Patch (In Memory Of)” in May 2009 (a month before the Believer interview) showed the band has no problem letting songs stand alone.
The King of Limbs does nothing to dispel the notion. Each song is self-contained, void of the type of forward and backward references found in a cohesive album. Without that “particular aesthetic,” The King of Limbs feels, in essence, like eight singles.
Much of this can be traced to the notable lack of guitar on the new tracks. Yorke has been known to say, “Tunes are dead; rhythm is everything,” and he’s often discussed making music without any guitar at all.
On King of Limbs, the track “Lotus Flower,” which serves as emissary to the casual listener, contains only vague celestial notes from the instrument, faded and heavy with tone-blurring effects over the bass-and-drum groove. By the time the album reaches its seventh track, “Giving Up the Ghost,” the unexpected acoustic guitar seems anachronistic. And the band seems to know this: The strumming is delicate, almost tentative, as if the instrument is simply happy to sit in on the session.
These ideas feel closer to Yorke’s solo work, The Eraser, and signal a stark departure from In Rainbows. One of the ribbons that bound the band’s 2007 album was the guitar work. With the exception of “Videotape” and “All I Need,” each track on the band’s pick-your-price album moved into a different dimension of the Radio-sphere but remained bound by an array of riffs and finger-picking that ingeniously wove through the layers of sound.
Yorke’s wresting of control from the quintessential rock ‘n’ roll instrument and handing the reins to rhythm may be what sabotages the cohesiveness of The King of Limbs. The idea works for many other artists, but Radiohead must build upon the captivating balance of playfulness and sorrow in Yorke’s vocals. Reliance on drums and bass seems inadequate: Midrange instrumentation is needed to augment the singer’s unique timbre.
Yet each song is exquisitely edited and mixed. That is not to be denied, nor should it be understated in any way. Radiohead and long-time producer Nigel Godrich lavish each track with meticulous care and nuance. In that respect, the cuts sound splendid to be sure. But the span of the album is not the scope of creation. For now, the statement of artistry begins and ends with each song.
So will Radiohead’s next release be another EP, or will the band gain another “fixed idea about where [it is] going” and create another OK Computer or Kid A?
No matter the band’s future direction, The King of Limbs will cause ripples. We’ve been witnessing the album’s death throes in the digital era.
Aspiring and DIY artists will no doubt take a lesson and build on the idea that you don’t necessarily need to go through the torture of crafting a complete album to share your work with the world. Eight songs can simply be eight songs. (Yorke noted in the Believer interview that he actually thinks the album died 20 years ago; the invention, and recent death, of the CD simply kept the concept alive a little while longer.)
Clever marketing has become a vehicle for moving the needle away from the album, too. The “newspaper album” concept for The King of Limbs builds on the compartmentalized-creation notion and provokes the thought of a periodical judged by its articles rather than the merit of the overall publication — an easy, if not unsettling, jump.
To extend the conjecture, a newspaper comes with regularity. King of Limbs’ last song outros with the lyrics, “If you think this is over, then you’re wrong / Wake me up.”
For Radiohead fans, this will inspire questions. Is it over? Is there more to come, sooner rather than later?
Viewing the intent of a band through the lens of its music is no new exercise (Is Dark Side of the Moon supposed to sync with The Wizard of Oz?), and Radiohead has gained quite a name with its tight-lipped and nuanced release strategies.
The titles of King of Limbs’ first and last songs — respectively “Bloom” and “Separator” — reinforce the notion that this is a first installment of something greater. The record title itself indicates that the eight songs may function as a head, a capo, to further limbs to come.
Whether Radiohead would be crass enough to embed a marketing lead in a song is probably the most contentious of the clues. It’s either brilliant, a sellout or just a lyric.
The King of Limbs is tight and well-produced, but lacks the stark contrasts and sonic journeys that pervade Radiohead’s seven previous studio works — lofty standards to be sure, but ones the band members surely hold themselves to as well. All in all, the album pulses with creativity, while leaving listeners wondering if they got all the tracks during their download.
Perhaps that’s the point.
WIRED Phil Selway’s drums and the crazy groove of “Morning, Mr. Magpie.”
TIRED Johnny Greenwood to the background. Manic vocal snippets on “Feral.”
Rating: 
Read Underwire’s music ratings guide.
See Also:
The Battle of Algiers review The Diving Bell and the Butterfly review The Wild Bunch review In Bruges review True Grit review
No comments:
Post a Comment