740 Radiohead - Hail To The Thief (2003)

 740 Radiohead - Hail To The Thief (2003)

Studio Album - Experimental Rock



About the Act:

Radiohead are an English Rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and have been in existence since 1985, continuously, with no breaks, reunions, hiatuses or even any changes in members. 36 years. That in itself is impressive.  Their lead dude is Thom Yorke, who writes the songs, sings the songs and plays lots of instruments. They are credited for being trailblazers in Alternative Rock. They have created 9 studio albums.

About the Album:

This was their sixth studio album, and comes out of a period of embracing electronic music.

My History with this Album:

None.

Review:

I expected lots of guitar thrashy stuff and depressiveness and Thom Yorke's keening falsetto voice. I didn't expect lots of electronica, odd time signatures, strange harmonies, shifting musical perspectives and for it to be so experimental.  I got the depressiveness and the vocals, and there is some guitar, but this is far from a Guitar-Led-Indie-Alt-Rock sound that I expected. 

Let's deal with the voice first, Thom Yorke who is the front man, has this kind of voice that goes high and long, if you liked it you might call it "ethereal", if not "whiney". I'm kind of coming round to the ethereal point of view. He reminds me of himself most of all (he is quite distinctive) but also of Matt Bellamy from Muse.

Musically, like indicated, this is quite experimental and unusual. They were just coming out of an electronic period, and had been touring, and were using the experience of performing the electronic stuff live to start to blend that with more "normal" instruments. There is a wide range of sounds here, and a willingness to push beyond the normal bounds of "rock". 

If you imagine Rock as being a circle on a piece of paper, or at least "mainstream rock". Within the circle are all the sounds and expectations of rock, so it might be a reasonably large circle. Then imagine places on the paper that are outside the circle, this is where experimental stuff lives, outside the mainstream. The thing about this is that the further out you go, the more space there is. The genre that is accepted as being the experimental side of rock, prog rock, is mostly up the top of the piece of paper, outside the circle, but quite closely bunched. This is somewhere else, like the bottom left.

It experiments with sounds, textures, rhythms, patterns, instruments, harmonic structures and chord sequences. It is discordant at times. It always has a purpose, and musically I found it to be a good experience, I listened about 2.5 times and it is growing on me. The voice kind of becomes an instrument, which in some ways means I didn't focus a lot on the words. I read stuff, apparently it's about "the general sense of ignorance and intolerance and panic and stupidity" following the election of George W Bush. It has a darkness, and yes it is kind of depressing. That's OK.

So, this was a better Radiohead than I expected. It's not a fun album, it's not necessarily easy to listen to, especially if you don't like weird for the sake of it, but it is well-crafted, interesting, effective and experimental.

8/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5mzoI3VH0ZWk1pLFR6RoYy

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxzSZG7g8c8yuM9HbrfSXEw0dF8zw5V35

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_to_the_Thief



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