Radiohead - In Rainbows

There are a number of images and words you associate with Radiohead - pretentious, adventurous, difficult, progressive, smart, depressing, awesome, to name a few. and along with such pronouns you get all manner of interjections of a band embrassing or abusing the media of the 21st century, or maybe you think they just look like a group of insomniac bank workers on a monday morning.

Radiohead are a band who can put out an album for no fixed price without it being seen as a cynically awkward middle finger gesture to the suits. but to fully appriciate radiohead, and more importantly their music, its best to just ignore all that. in rainbows -the band's 7th in 16 years- should be reviewed and remarked purely on its musical merit as, yet again, thom, ed, johnny, colin and phil have delivered a fantasic album.

After their first trio of rock albums, radiohead have been a schitzophrenic monster of late. one minute prog punk angst riden depress heads, the next electro pioneers, and after a couple of baffling records -'kid a' and 'amnesiac'- they seemed to have balanced the rock/electro whitenoise to its brilliant best with 2003's 'hail to the thief'. now more than 4 years later they follow it up with yet another intersesting clash of styles to create another work of art.

Opening track '15 steps' is the wierder side of the band, with its disjointed drum loops and broken glass vocals. 'bodysnatchers' and faust arp' are hints of the old radiohead, albeit more jerky than anything on 'the bends' or ok computer'. 'wierd fishes/arpeggi' is a wall of sound that builds as a result of what sounds like a jam, but remains clinically startling due to thom's perfectly fractured vocals. the dark wave of 'all i need' and 'reckoner' are yet more interesting stabs at the brain, although they are probably the weakest points on the album. 'house of cards' is a clumpy triphop ghost of song that benifits from some classic yorke-ian lyrics, as does first single 'jigsaw falling into place', which is the most polished and fully formed song on the record, rattling along at a frantically kinetic pace.

Which just leaves the tear jerking anthams that radiohead do so well. 'nude' -an often mentioned song from their live shows for nearly ten years finally gets the studio time it deserves and is a highlight, and closing track 'videotape' - a message from beyond the grave from recently expired father to infant child via the medium of vhs - with is haunting minimalism ends the album on a haunting note, and would reduce a docker to tears.

In Rainbows is, at first, an awkward juxtaposition of sounds -as if you were expecting anything else from radiohead- but give it time and you'll discover a truly astonishing album. these guys get less and less boring with every release.