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Rating:
After the electronic experiments, the Dadaist texts, an album released with virtually no promotional effort ("Kid A"), and another considered by most to be little more than a collection of leftovers, Radiohead return home somewhat with "Hail To The Thief", their sixth studio album and, if I'm allowed to take a risk, their best.
Essentially, the album blends the psychedelic and expansive atmospheres of "OK Computer" with the less linear and more electronic ones of "Kid A", complete with loops, samples, and digital glitches, offering an elegant and decidedly evocative fusion of moods and sounds: we can thus admire tracks full of pathos like the opening "2+2=5", with a nervous guitar emphasizing the anguished emphasis of Thom Yorke's voice, submerged in the most surreal pathos until it explodes into a captivating hard rock ride that reminded me (and I say this at the risk of being lynched once again) of the wildest White Stripes.
This track could almost serve as a manifesto for the entire album, of its successful fusion of rock and electronics, while "Sit Down Stand Up" shuffles the deck, offering a tense and hallucinatory piano trip-hop, with lyrics painting disturbing scenes of power abuse (walk into the jaws of hell... we can wipe you out anytime
) as Thom Yorke's voice becomes increasingly delirious and the song reaches boiling point in a frantic finale with jungle overtones, with the voice repeating in a trance-like mannerthe raindrops, the raindrops
.
The rest of the album, after all, merely repeats this blueprint in various combinations, from the Pink Floydian ballad "Sail To The Moon", another high point of the album, to the menacing (and vaguely oriental) electronics of "The Gloaming", passing through the moving U2-like pathos (with a hint of The Cure and Talking Heads) of "Where I End And You Begin", one of the most beautiful songs on the album, with the curious electronic funk of "A Punchup At A Wedding" and the nervous burst of grunge anger of "Myxomatosis" complementing the rest.
The only episode in my opinion that is less convincing is "Scatterbrain", perhaps a bit bland and infused with deja vu, and the bizarre conclusion of "A Wolf At The Door", a sort of surreal rap-blues all in one breath (which may vaguely remind of R.E.M.'s "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)").
The lyrics, then, deserve a chapter of their own, rich in allusions and allegories, surreal and poetic images, often with political and social implications (the album's title itself could be a nod to the protest slogan of anti-Bush activists after the alleged fraud that led to his victory in the 2000 elections) and never trivial, as is Yorke's well-established tradition.
After listening to this album over and over, I realize I'm faced with a complete work, rich in emotions, ideas, implications, and capable of provoking thoughts and reflections, thus entering the ranks of music that cannot be defined as "pop" because its primary purpose is not to entertain. Food for thought, and that's precisely what we all ask for from music, isn't it?
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 2 + 2 = 5 (The Lukewarm.) (03:19)
Are you such a dreamer
To put the world to rights?
I stay home forever
Where two and two always makes a five
I'll lay down the tracks
Sandbag and hide
January has April's showers
And two and two always makes a five
It's the devil's way now
There is no way out
You can scream and you can shout
It is too late now
Because
You have not been
Payin' attention
Payin' attention
Payin' attention
Payin' attention
Yeah, I'm not feeling it
Payin’ attention
Payin’ attention
Payin’ attention
Payin’ attention
Yeah, I need it
I needed attention
I needed attention
I needed attention
I needed attention
Yeah, I love it, the attention
Payin’ attention
Payin’ attention
Payin’ attention
I try to sing along
I get it all wrong
Cause I’m not
Cause I’m not
I swat them like flies
But like flies the buggers
Keep coming back
But I’m not
Oh, hail to the thief
Oh, hail to the thief
But I'm not
But I'm not
But I'm not
But I'm not
Don't question my authority or put me in the box
Cause I'm not
Cause I'm not
Oh, go and tell the king that the sky is falling in
But it's not
But it's not
But it's not
Maybe not
Maybe not
09 There There. (The Boney King of Nowhere.) (05:24)
In pitch dark I go walking in your landscape.
Broken branches trip me as I speak.
Just 'cause you feel it doesnt mean its there.
Just 'cause you feel it doesnt mean its there.
There's always a siren
Singing you to shipwreck
(Don't reach out, don't reach out
Don't reach out, don't reach out)
Steer away from these rocks
We'd be a walking disaster
(Don't reach out, don't reach out
Don't reach out, don't reach out)
Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean its there.
(theres someone on your shoulder)
(theres someone on your shoulder)
Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean its there.
(theres someone on your shoulder)
(theres someone on your shoulder)
There there!
Why so green and lonely?
And lonely
And lonely
Heaven sent you to me
To me
To me
We are accidents
Waiting waiting to happen.
We are accidents
Waiting waiting to happen
10 I Will. (No Man's Land.) (01:59)
I will, lay me down
In a bunker underground
I won't let this happen to my children
Meet the real world coming out of your shell
With white elephants, sitting ducks
I will rise up
Little babies' eyes, eyes, eyes, eyes
Little babies' eyes, eyes, eyes, eyes
Little babies' eyes, eyes, eyes
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Other reviews
By 2+2=5
Have you ever woken up with the absolute conviction that you had a beautiful dream?
This is Music. ...don’t come to talk to me about intellectualism for its own sake or excessive experimentation, because the dream is mine.
By massimo1
The album seems simply FANTASTIC to me (perhaps because of the anticipation?)
To close, I would just like to emphasize how I liked this CD on the first listen, unlike the previous ones
By josi_
When I listen to 2+2=5 (The Lukewarm) I feel Radiohead’s hysteria rewritten in a way I couldn’t have imagined.
A Wolf At The Door ... the most beautiful song of the album, if not of their history, in my humble opinion.
By dado
"It's incredible how in a three-and-a-half-minute track like 2+2=5, the band manages to incorporate three radical tempo changes without clashing."
"The lyrics, even if incomprehensible in parts, show Thom’s talent as a writer, depicting a world that seems a symbiosis of our own and Orwellian dystopia."
By Blackdog
A meeting point between the anguished melody of 'Ok Computer' and the 'cryptic' experimentalism of 'Kid A'.
A resolute and utopian rebellion against the current state of affairs, against the mystification of reality operated by politicians and mass media.
