petrocs
May 2002
Your Moms Favorite
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Review: Radiohead- Hail To The Thief
Radiohead, the Oxford-based British quintet that is the most consistently provocative rock band on the planet is back with yet another example of their amazing talents. On the surface this appears to be just another album but within Radiohead's Hail to the Thief, there is a story.
Evil agents work overtime trying to capture the thoughts running through the head of the last individualist in a colony of worker drones. When the rebel holdout - vocalist and lyricist Thom Yorke, in something of a recurring role - discovers he's being monitored, he concocts a typically subversive response: He begins to think in junk scrambles.
He repeats himself constantly, the words, as if they were rosary beads, finding comfort in the repetition. He follows harmless thoughts with faithful vows such as "I will eat you alive."
He doesn't try to make sense - in fact, he delights in being elusive with the facts. He emits psychobabble such as "Just because you feel it, doesn't mean it's there" as if they're words to live by.
You can guess how this fantasy ends knowing their past offerings. Abruptly. Nothing's resolved, everything's a mess.
It's impossible to tell whether the bad guys are real or just hanging out in Yorke's brain. And abandon hope of figuring out what it all signifies because its simply impossible. Instead feel as if no answer could be good enough and that the feeling of this album is more of a drug that you can't stop taking because it feels so damn good.
Of course that's the long-standing charge against Radiohead. And it's one reason some will dismiss the disturbing Hail to the Thief but I urge you to give it a chance in the context it deserves, your undivided attention because these songs can hold whatever kind of wonder the listener pours into them.
Rating 5 out of 5 stars
Stand Out Tracks:
1) Sit Down. Stand Up
2) Go to Sleep
3) Myxomatosis
4) Sail To The Moon
5) Backdrifts
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"If somebody said to me, in twelve years you’ll be in a band with your brother and two carrot munching geezers who don’t like football, I would've said 'fuck off, I’m not joining the Bee Gees." -Noel Gallagher 2005
Last edited by petrocs on 06-09-2003 at 01:43 AM
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06-09-2003 01:35 AM
Wow!
