It would be easy to spend this review talking about everything but the music of “In Rainbows.” About how, for instance, Radiohead announced the album’s release a mere 10 days before putting it online, creating a media firestorm that roasted the usual interminable three-month publicity cycle. Or how the band is selling the album digitally, without a record label, and letting fans name their price ““ including “free.” But as important and even revolutionary as these things are ““ and make no mistake, in the dinosaur music industry, this is a hell of a meteor ““ they pale in comparison to the album itself.
“In Rainbows” is the first album in four long years from a band widely considered the best of its generation; expectations have been duly stratospheric since it premiered many of these new songs on last summer’s tour. For the most part, the album is the pot of gold we’ve been waiting for. Eschewing much of the electronic textures the group has embraced since 2000’s “Kid A,” “In Rainbows” isn’t quite “OK Computer II,” but the elusive, blissful album ““ filled with the welcome sound of guitars and strings ““ might be the next best thing.
Radiohead remains as artful and unpredictable as ever. “15 Step” cracks the album open with borderline-distorted drum machines and litters its guitar-based second half with unexpected sound effects and interludes, the best of which is a shouted “yea!” from a chorus of children. The guitar tone on “Bodysnatchers” is suitably monstrous, and the string-aided “Nude,” a song that’s been kicking around for a decade, is the most beautiful thing the band’s laid to tape since “Kid A”’s “How to Disappear Completely.” “Don’t get any big ideas,” front man Thom Yorke sings like some dark angel before he’s enveloped by his own multi-tracked vocals, and his performances throughout are among the most stirring of his career.
After the flawless first half concludes with the glorious cymbal crashes and piano pounds of “All I Need,” the album weakens a touch: “Reckoner” feels a bit half-formed next to the intricate buildup of “All I Need” or “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi,” and “House of Cards” buries a straightforward, U2-aping pop song in echoes and reverb. “Videotape,” the album’s final track, wastes what could be the album’s finest moment (the live version is awe-inspiring) by ending with a minute of anticlimactic electronic percussion.
But honestly, these are fanboy quibbles from a critic who’s spent too much time with the live bootlegs.
It feels almost embarrassing to criticize this album: Radiohead is still so far beyond any of its peers that when it falters, it doesn’t seem to matter. Songs such as “Nude” and the “Let Down”-like “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” are so good that they render even the best of this year’s releases irrelevant, and while it feels like the group may have finally reached its creative limits, there’s no denying the utter worthiness of “In Rainbows” as a bright new addition to an incomparable discography.
““ Dave Greenwald
E-mail Greenwald at dgreenwald@media.ucla.edu.