Radiohead
Hail To The Thief

THE REVIEW

Sixth attempt for Radiohead, the quintet led by that sprite Thom Yorke. Sixth attempt and a new change of direction, in the new "Hail To The Thief," which sounds with a style that, through the right synthesis between the electronics of the previous "Kid A" and "Amnesiac" and the live sound of "Pablo Honey," has already been characteristic of the multi-award-winning "Ok Computer".

The record starts spinning, and immediately sounds more gritty than the previous ones. It's incredible how in a three-and-a-half-minute track like 2+2=5 (The Lukewarm), the Oxford band manages to incorporate three radical tempo changes without clashing, moving from the usual paranoid entrance, characterized by the wails of Yorke's lead vocals, to a finale with tighter rhythms highlighted by faster, frantic singing.

After such an intriguing start, the album proceeds flawlessly with some peaks of originality and quality in Backdrifts (track 4), The Gloaming (t.8), and There There (t.9).

While the album seems to conclude without further flashes of genius, the last song gives us the final welcome surprise of the album. Indeed, the lament initially monotonous and then melancholic and a bit angrier from Thom, who sings the text of "A Wolf at the Door" (It Girl. Rag Doll), so scathing towards today's society that it echoes "Fitter Happier" from O.K. Computer.

The lyrics, even if incomprehensible in parts, as a whole show Thom's talent as a writer. Melancholic and paranoid, they depict a world that seems to be a symbiosis between our world and another just emerged from Orwellian descriptions.

Almost ten years after the debut of "Pablo Honey," "Hail To The Thief" represents a return to melody for the British quintet and is yet another demonstration of their talent and their positioning outside of any specific genre, belonging only on the list of the greatest artists of all time.