Radiohead
Hail To The Thief

THE REVIEW

The 'ode to the thief' by Radiohead is a dense sonic universe and at times loaded with an unusual communicative urgency for them; a meeting point between the anguished melody of 'Ok Computer' and the 'cryptic' experimentalism of 'Kid A'.

The disillusioned analytical vein in Thom Yorke's lyrics explores the absurd madness of man in a world where, by now, the nightmares and paranoias of modern society are everyday reality: therefore, from the Orwellian '2+2=5', a hybrid between the guitar expressiveness of Radiohead from 'The Bends' and a seething magma of hermetic and dark sounds, it is clear that the five from Oxford are interested in tracing a darkly tinted landscape over the fears of the present and the anxiety of an uncertain future; where all the political and social contradictions of the West emerge. 'Sit down, stand up' explodes at the end into a hypnotic/electronic mantra while outside it 'keeps raining, keeps raining...'; the darkness ('The Gloaming') surrounds us and for Radiohead, the only possible solution is an illusory escape to the moon ('Sail to the Moon') in a peak of 'cosmic' lyricism before the rhythmic tangles of 'Backdrifts'.

The union between instrumental and electronic breaks again in the surprising 'Go to Sleep', almost a folk-song transfigured by Yorke's evocative singing and acoustic sounds of Greenwood and O'Brien into a post-apocalyptic scenario, which anticipates the dark progression of 'Where I End and You Begin', between new wave and gothic. 'We Suck Young Blood' is a grim and 'vampiric' metaphor about the loss of innocence in the false appearance of show-business; with Thom Yorke's funereal voice accompanying a gloomy clap of hands. But the rediscovered harmony with the song form compared to the previous works of the English group continues in the emotional conveyance of the single 'There There' and in 'Punch Up at the Wedding', the latter halfway between the soul of the '70s and an 'alienated' jazz played during a wedding gone wrong. 'I Will' is a tender elegy that instead hides anger and wrath against those who can decide the fate of others, where an earnest Yorke warns that all this will not happen to his own children, and he will try in every way to protect them from the blind hand of the system. A resolute and utopian rebellion against the current state of affairs, against the mystification of reality operated by politicians and mass media in recent years, where there are those who try to make you believe that the sum of 2+2 is 5, which culminates in the surreal fury of 'Myxomatosis' and its "bastard dog with half an animal head" infected, indeed, with myxomatosis: an oppressive, anxiety-inducing and lacerating atmosphere with glam guitars set against a 'Blade Runner' backdrop, and the doubt that we could all have been victims of a contagion.

The sweetness of 'Scatterbrain' hopes for a purification that, in the final catharsis of 'A Wolf at the Door', heightens the discomfort regarding 'someone' intent on watching us, spying on our every small and futile action. A real 'Big Brother' deciding for us. A wolf at the door, waiting silently to take everything away from us. Nonetheless, even for Radiohead, there can be a way out of these dark times, despite 'the main road is that of the devil and there's no point in shouting'; and it's evidenced by a desire to reclaim human dignity, from the matrix and its machines, that emerges clearly from listening to 'Hail to the Thief'.

With best regards to George W. Bush.