Radiohead
Hail To The Thief

THE REVIEW

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?