Radiohead -- The King of Limbs

8/10

Ah, so the comment I made in my review of Hail to the Thief, "Almost every band I feel a strong emotional connection to has an album that I unfairly malign upon its release, only to come back to and love later" is doubled when it comes to Radiohead. Hail to the Thief isn't the only one of their albums to grew on me over time. The King of Limbs is another slow grower. Again, my own expectations were my biggest obstacle to enjoyment.
The King of Limbs follows one of Radiohead's greatest albums, and maybe their most complete, In Rainbows. In Rainbows features a full, lush, beautiful, enveloping, highly-textured,sound. The King of Limbs, in many ways, does not. It is beautiful at points, but in completely different ways. In Rainbows features a confident, complete sound. The King of Limbs is completely transient. It was creating by chopping the band's performances into bits and pieces, and then gluing them back together in hopefully a pleasing manner. Glitchy rhythms shuffle along. Guitars start and stop. Sometimes even the vocals are garbled samples. Thankfully, Colin Greenwood's basslines are allowed to roam free from the editing knife, and serve as a bedrock for each song. Tom Yorke's vocals, even more emotive and naked than his work on In Rainbows, at least when they're not diced up, soar high. This is a unique sound the band have forged here.
However, even getting past my "Ugh, it isn't In Rainbows" expectations, there is still some fault to find here. For one, having a restless sound that can't be nailed down can be invigorating at first, but it does grow a bit stale. When the weighty piano ballad, "Codex" comes at track six, it's refreshing that the song feels mostly intact. Also, the entire album is only eight tracks, the shortest ever for this band. This isn't necessarily a negative, but when the music feels so weightless, overall, the short length feels a bit cheaper. In some ways, The King of Limbs feels more like a quick thought than an album. Thankfully, though, despite the short tracklist and occasional feelings of restlessness, the album's positives are bountiful.
Opener, "Bloom," might be the most ascendant song in the band's catalogue, establishing the album's sound, even as it takes flight and soars past it. The diced up guitar and rhythm combine with a stunning Tom Yorke vocal and, of all things, a flugelhorn, to create a sense of sky, the ground far below a majestic blur. In fact, so majestic that the BBC paired composer Hans Zimmer with the band to create a new version of the song to theme their Blue Planet II.

As powerful as that version is, I actually prefer the headrush of the album version, with its Asian textures and more intimate setting, though the climax of the BBC version is almost so transcendentally emotional it is unreal, especially coupled with the BBC's gorgeous ocean imagery. It also helps that the opening verse is the most beautiful lyric Yorke ever penned:

Open your mouth wide
The universal sigh
And while the ocean blooms
It's what keeps me alive
"So why does this still hurt?"
Don't blow your mind with whys

Well, after that, just about anything would be a letdown. "Morning Mr Magpie" is a good natured, quiet and jittery little thing that's close to harmless. "Little by Little" is a little more forceful with its rhythm, creating a lot of momentum that is slightly squandered by the choppy and aimless instrumental, "Feral." This is immediately followed by the album's single "Lotus Flower," a funky, atmospheric song that really lets Greenwood's bass shine. It's not bad to dance to either.

Where the opener and earlier tracks conveyed a feeling of morning and blue skies, "Lotus Flower" brings on a feeling of night, which leads into the dark, piano-led "Codex." Continuing with the nature imagery that is certainly intentional, the music and lyrics of "Codex" are more evocative of a lake at night, pensive and moody. It's a bit gloomy, but well placed, as it is immediately followed by the sound of birds singing and golden sunrise coming through the curtains of "Give Up the Ghost." I've increasingly described Yorke's vocals as "vulnerable" in these last couple of reviews, but this is Yorke at his most vulnerable, totally emotionally exposed as he continuously sings "Don't hurt me," and "Into your arms," his vocals layered and layered on top of each other until he croons "I think I should give up the ghost." Not to get too emo on you, but years after my first listen, the 12th or so time I had heard Yorke hit the note at the end of the word "ghost," I suddenly started sobbing and realized that my bias against this album had been defeated. I love when reviews turn into me feeling like I am having a conversation with the album I am reviewing. Self-revelatory.
The album then ends with "Separator," a light, skippy, almost slight track, except for the reverb-drenched repeated outro vocal, "If you think this is over, then you're wrong/wake me up." This song sums up The King of Limbs to me. Not the most consequential work in Radiohead's catalogue, but one with enough exceptional moments to make it worthwhile. At that particular point in the band's career, after a decade-and-a-half of bearing the weight of having to top themselves again and again, perhaps The King of Limbs is exactly the album Radiohead needed to make.

2011 XL
1. Bloom 5:15
2. Morning Mr Magpie 4:41
3. Little by Little 4:27
4. Feral 3:13
5. Lotus Flower 5:01
6. Codex 4:47
7. Give Up the Ghost 4:50
8. Separator 5:20