Twainfecta's Blog: The King Of Limbs (Music Review)

'The King Of Limbs' is Radiohead's 8th studio album. It was self-released on Feb. 18 and is available from the band's website for $9 as an MP3 download

I have gone through the whole album about 6 or 7 times by now. I find that the best way for me to enjoy new music is to just clean around the house with my headphones on. If the music is really good (like in this case) I get a lot of cleaning done.

I'm a big fan of the music and they repeatedly cement themselves as one of the best (the best in my opinion) bands since the 90's. They've practically achieved a PhD in sound engineering at this point. Their recent music (particularly 'In Rainbows' and now 'The King Of Limbs') sounds so crisp and rich, it's hard not to enjoy it.

Radiohead: The best band since the 90's

I find similarities between this album and 'Hail To The Thief'. The style and feel of some of the more avant garde tracks of the latter (e.g. "Where I End And You Begin," "Myxamatosis") find their way back on 'The King Of Limbs' in a big way. Where they were almost afterthought songs on 'HTTF' they are the main attraction on 'TKOL'.

Tracks 1-5 are as strong a string of songs as Radiohead have ever put together. The percussion work is AMAZING and the bass and vocals complement it perfectly. It's almost modern jazz. It's almost techno. It's almost rock. But it's none of those really.

But then track 6 comes along which feels so dull and simple. And then track 7 is kind of cool but it seems a bit campfire-ish and out of place. And then they get back on track with track 8 and before you know it the ride is over.

So, I love the sound they achieve but I think the album suffers a bit from being too short and from having a couple of songs in there that sound out of place to me. But they get props for managing to blindside the entire music industry with the release of the album. With only about 1 week to get hyped up about the album and to build expectations it was hard to be disappointed.