Radiohead, the group that most people consider the best band in music today. I myself for one am a devoted Radiohead fan and have been for years. The music, concepts, themes, emotions all trigger something within many listeners which turn us into Radiohead fans. Since the debut of "Pablo Honey" and more specifically the track entitled "Creep", Radiohead has always been in the eye and ear of many music lovers. For those fans of the acclaimed band, we have a new album, a new sound, a new image. We have "In Rainbows".
"In Rainbows" is the follow up to "Hail to the thief" and Radiohead's seventh album in their discography. The 10 track album has literally been in the making since what many call Radiohead's masterpiece "OK Computer". The track "Nude" featured on the new album was being played regularly during the touring of the "OK Computer" which is ten years prior to "In Rainbows". Not only does this new album have the guitar driven, lyric heavy songs like "OK computer", it has song's that take that sound and build on top of it. The song "Bodysnatchers" which is a live favorite sounds like it would also have been in the "OK Computer" era. A song that simply captures the sound and vibe that first drew music fans to Radiohead.
The album is completely filled with beautiful pieces of music and some of Thom Yorke's best lyrics. The opening track "15 steps" is a beautiful mixture of pop music and an artist at work. In this day in age we have hardly any musicians that understand of the concept of artistic entertainment. We either have very artistic music which isn't anything to dance to, let alone bob your head or we have the musicians which all of us have heard on the radio which just play music for a paycheck. The producers write the songs and they do as they are told. Radiohead was never brought up that way and I know for a fact they won't conform to this new "style" of music.
Themes, Emotions and the creative sound of this album are all carefully blended together like a rainbow itself. It never shifts gears and doesn't have any song that comes completely out of left field, the album is amazingly structured even though none of the songs sound anything alike. Everything from "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" which may be Radiohead's most amazing achievement lyric and music wise to the hauntingly beautiful closing track "Videotape" which is guarantee to stay with you long after the song has ended are all completely different sounding songs. This is Radiohead's best structured album hands down.
The Production of the album has been talked about since the release. The sound is amazing for a download, it surpasses most Cd's in a technical aspect. Jonny's Guitar and ambient sounds have never sounded better. His older brother Colin's bass is just beautiful, you can literally feel the bass traveling from his strings to your ears and into your brain where it resides. Ed's haunting guitar is the last jigsaw falling into place making everything full and rich. As for Thom Yorke's voice and song writing, it has never been better. Everything is top notch which leads me to Mr. Phil Selway.
This is Phil's album completely. Every beat of the drums is absolutely perfect, Phil has always been an amazing drummer but on this album we get so many subtle offbeats and drum rolls that are just jaw dropping. The brilliant track "Reckoner", not to be confused with the previous and more rock track also entitled "Reckoner" has some of the most amazing drums on any album I've heard. The faint Snare rolls in the background towards the last third of the song are just genius. Also I must say I have never heard anything like the drum patterns that are playing in the last parts of Videotape. A drum pattern which adds a beat after every roll, I was literally floored.
"In Rainbows" is genius. An album filled with nothing but amazing songs and top notch production. Radiohead may have well gave us their masterpiece. I also say that in a literal sense due to the revolutionary "Pay what you want" album price that they gave to their fans. More lightening's of this album will provide us the answer if this tops "OK computer" as Radiohead's Crowning achievement, for myself it's already on par with it. How can you not love the slowly paced melody and rock out ending of "All I need"? How about the beautiful and lovely "House of cards" which i will admit didn't sit well with me when i first heard the live recording but Radiohead seemed to make it into one of their most beautiful song's in years. Last but not least the very mysterious "Faust Arp" which no one knew about is literally one of the most brilliant things Radiohead has ever done on acoustic. "Faust Arp" would make Red hot Chili Pepper's John Frusciante wish he would have written that song. "In Rainbows" is a perfect album which will definitely go down as a great step forward in marketing for music but more importantly a huge step forward for the greatest band in the world.
Thank You Radiohead.
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