When Radiohead released In Rainbows digitally in 2007, the collective music press got their reviews online in no time. Today is no different with the release of its follow-up, The King Of Limbs. Here’s a round-up of The King Of Limbs reviews that have been published online.
Rolling Stone has a track-by-track breakdown. “With eight tracks spanning 37 minutes, The King of Limbs is surprisingly short – but it’s also typically rich with electronic texture.” — Will Hermes
Another track-by-track review comes from The Telegraph. On closing track Separator: “It’s a perfectly understated ending to Radiohead’s most mellifluous collection, not so much a chill out as an exhausted cigarette break in the eye of the hurricane, down time from a disaster. If Radiohead are still a rock band, then no one has told them. This is something else entirely. The sound of the future calling.” — Neil McCormick
The Telegraph have another review up. This one’s from Lucy Jones and she asks “is this Radiohead’s most feminine album? [...] It’s a treasure. It places the band’s ability to write beguilingly beautiful songs first and puts the grit and testosterone on the backseat. There are songs on it which will win the band new fans, there are others (Feral particularly) which won’t. Codex, Little by Little and Separator are highlights and will leap high up the band’s canon. I knew it: there is no end to Radiohead’s genius.” — Lucy Jones
“A fans-pleasing eighth album from Britain’s most consistently brilliant band,” says the BBC. “Thom says something about dragonflies, something else about nobody getting hurt; the words blur and blend, though, as beneath them the simplest, most strikingly gorgeous piano motif bores its way into the heart. And it’s here, not any of your limited-character blogging or video-sharing sites, that Radiohead trump all comers, again. — Mike Diver
NME reviewed all eight separately as well, and in their final verdict we quote: “This is an avant-garde record, and most definitely not a return to the crowd-pleasing songwriting of the ‘OK Computer’ era. In a sense it’s a continuation of ‘In Rainbows’ in that Radiohead have now worked out how to be experimental without sacrificing the human element. As on that record, they display the knack of sounding deceptively machine-like. It sounds electronic even when it isn’t – but there’s always a pearl of soulfulness hidden within.” — Luke Lewis
Wall Street Journal: “The King of Limbs, the new Radiohead album, balances beautifully the band’s gift for melodic rock, energetic electronic rhythms and crafty musical experimentation. Quietly assertive, engaging and accessible, it’s a worthy successor to “In Rainbows,” their 2007 release. It’s a short album – eight songs; a little more than 37 minutes – but the music is richly textured and complex.” — Jim Fusilli
The Guardian: “Yes, you can still marvel that one of the world’s biggest bands are releasing music totally lacking in commercial concerns. And yes, they’re still leading the pack when it comes to releasing music in an exciting, innovative way. But whereas their business model is unusual, there’s a nagging feeling that The King of Limbs is more like business as usual.” — Tim Jonze
SF Weekly write: “Only half the grooves-not-songs were good on first listen, and none were great. The very little guitar is welcome when there is any, and judging by the same old rhythm tricks and dull James Blake rip, Radiohead no longer sounds like innovators thinking three steps ahead of us. The band sound like it’s been running on empty ever since John Mayer deciphered its Klingon. The best moments here were the ones least like themselves: South Asian guitars, Mideastern percussion, swooning (if not quite sultry) soul. Radiohead needs to go further, and the fact it needs to be told that means it’s no longer in the lead. — Dan Weiss
Vanity Fair: “Well worth the $9 download and will get several plays on headphones during Manhattan errand runs. But if I hear someone raving about it in line at the movie theater, I might just have to pull a Marshall McLuhan from Annie Hall: “Oh, really? Well, I happen to have the members of Can here.”” — Marc Spitz
Gigwise go track-by-track and end with: “Radiohead’s ‘The King Of Limbs’ might only be eight tracks long but there’s not a single moment that hasn’t been painstakingly constructed, de-constructed and put back together again. With all the ingenious ways the band are now choosing to release music, it’s easy to forget just how inventive, avant-garde and, at the end of the day, emotionally touching the songs they make are. ‘The King Of Limbs’ is an engrossing listen, an album that sends you to an emphatic high before wrapping you up in a blanket to recuperate. Masterful.” — Jason Gregory
The Toronto Sun praise Radiohead on their release tactics and on The King Of Limbs they say: “It’s not a game-changer a la Kid A. It’s not even as accessible as In Rainbows (and that’s using the term loosely). It’s understated and introspective. There are no big anthems, no singalong choruses — virtually no choruses at all, in fact, just layers of skittery rhythms, dreamscape sonics and atmospheric vocals. The lyrics are preoccupied with nature — lotus flowers, magpies, fish out of water and whatnot — in contrast to the music’s unnatural chill. Coupled with the title — which refers to a 1,000-year-old tree in Britain — it suggests a man-vs-nature theme.” — Darryl Sterdan
London Evening Standard: As is the Radiohead way, as befits a an album whose cover nods to Edvard Munch’s The Scream, The King Of Limbs will reveal its diverse charms even slower than it downloads, but while there is no pop music among these eight tracks, there is much to savour . . . The King Of Limbs combines elegant pain, weary despair, uncomfortable dislocation and an unmistakeable seam of comfort. Business as usual for Radiohead, then. — John Aizlewood
The UK edition of Metro rates the album four out of five: “Like Yorke has already shown, The King if Limbs is music to rock out to in the most introspective way as its beautiful melodies drift into and linger in the forgotten pockets of your mind. — Ann Lee
The Independent says The King Of Limb is good but not great. “If The King Of Limbs was by any band other than Radiohead, the world would shrug. But when it’s Radiohead? Hold the front page.” —Simon Price
“Radiohead is defying that mindset, creating exactly what it wants on its own timetable, to make another sudden digital splash,” write The New York Times. “The King of Limbs is Radiohead in its familiar richly depressive mode: full of pained longing and fixated on musical nuance, getting lost in sound and then clawing its way out beautifully. As an album, it’s too brief. But these are songs to dive into.” — Jon Pareles
Esquire: “The King of Limbs is a fine record for a rainy day, although it’s hard not to wonder if it would be received as well as it has been had it come under the imprimatur of, say, a band releasing its second or third album. Which is something else you have to give the band credit for: Whether wondering how they managed to get a particular sound out of Thom Yorke’s voice or how they seemed to solve the Internet, Radiohead certainly keep you guessing. And talking about them with your friends”. — Maura Johnston
Radiohead, it seems, has become a dance band, we read in Los Angeles Times. “The music’s enveloping resonance, the unalloyed pleasure it brings, colors Yorke’s lyrics; even when they go morbid, they seem less concerned with demons than with ghosts who might be tamed. “Open your mouth wide,” he sings in “Bloom.” “Don’t blow your mind with why.” No harm, it turns out, in sometimes letting the bones (or maybe, once in a while, the booty) lead”. — Ann Powers
The Observer: “In truth, The King of Limbs sounds a little predictable, certainly at first. It is very much the heir to 2007′s In Rainbows, imbued with some of the spirit of Yorke’s solo outing, 2006′s The Eraser. Which is to say, it sounds another death knell for fans of The Bends and OK Computer still hoping for a late recantation and a return to anthemic guitar rock. [...] Radiohead’s dense and knotted eighth album may sound a little predictable at first but it merits close and long listening.” — Kitty Empire
Chicago Tribune‘s Greg Kot rated the album 2.5 out of 4 stars, stating “the new Radiohead never resolves the friction between the physical freedom of dance music and the carefully constructed architecture of more insular, inward looking art-pop. Its reference points are abstract jazz-fusion albums that implied funk without actually embracing it: Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew,” Herbie Hancock’s “Sextant.” That’s heady, serious territory, but then Radiohead has never really been about fun. At certain moments, “King of Limbs” hints that it someday could be, with a ferocious rhythm-based album along the lines of Talking Heads’ “Remain in Light.”
But for now, they’re not quite as loose-limbed and uninhibited as the Yorke of “Lotus Flower.” Instead, a more appropriate title for “King of Limbs” might be one borrowed from another abstract jazz album: Ornette Coleman’s “Dancing in Your Head.” ” — Greg Kot
The New York Post: Fans who have been intimidated by some of Radiohead’s headier rock experiments should feel more comfortable with “Limbs.” The band embraces the most accessible, melodic elements of “Kid A” — upbeat and energetic without the annoying and repetitive boom-boom bass lines of traditional dance music. — Dan Aquilante
Graeme Virtue wrote for The Herald Scotland: “Where the album does triumph, however, is as a symbol of Radiohead’s artistic pre-eminence. They are a band totally in control of their destiny, now so digitally entwined with their worldwide fanbase that there is no need for mediation through record companies or – whisper it – music critics. And while it’s easy to characterise them as chilly and alienated – the better to explain their fierce musical discipline, rejection of rock cliche and Thom Yorke’s dancing in the Lotus Flower video – the fact is they’re actually having a whale of a time, making the art they love free of commercial pressure and idiotic interference. — Graeme Virtue
So what is the Radiohead album really about? It’s about a tree, in that it’s about staying true to your roots.”
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Radiohead news on this day..
- Flying Lotus Flower: Radiohead vs The King Of Beats – 2011
- Dance Dance Dance: Thom Yorke, Beyoncé, Shakira and more – 2011
- Digital Rainbow completed – 2008
- Thom Yorke joins Trident protest – 2007
- Order your ateaseweb.com/Donwood shirt – 2005
- Ether Festival update – 2005
- Kashmir on Radiohead – 2004
- Brit Awards on Canadian TV – 2004
- Thom & Jonny interview in NME – 2004
- News in brief – 2002
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