Radiohead
In Rainbows

"In Rainbows" is unique; it's an album not shouted but whispered, tracks upon tracks not epic but intense, a composition of fluctuating emotions of depth and magic. Upon a first and quick listen, you might understandably not catch the important and decisive nuances for understanding the pieces. But the work of the five Englishmen is subtle, an effectively intimate composition reserved for a few, a record made exclusively for fans more cerebrally connected to Radiohead, simply a gift that Thom Yorke & Company wanted to give to a few, almost inviting only a select few into their rustic cellar to listen to the pieces sitting in their presence.

The album unfolds through significant pieces like "15 Step" with a very engaging initial rhythm that cuts off with a fantastic guitar piece, moving to "Nude" one of the most beautiful tracks on the album, a grim text in the perfect Radiohead style on the trend of "work-consume-die" conducted by music that stretches and adapts perfectly to the text. With "All I Need," another descriptive fragment of "In Rainbows," we reach moments of intense and sharp poetry, and then arrive at "Reckoner," the true masterpiece of the album. The track of very high artistic value conveys infinitely emotional sound, it is flexible and soft, you can perceive the smell in the music, feel it vibrating in the soul, and the sinuous movement remains indelible. A perfect style of elegance, an incomparable source of turmoil, where we reach the limit of the permissible, a space-time door to the authentic pure Radiohead world. Subsequently, "Jigsaw Falling Into Place", which is also the first single released, confirms itself as a good piece, with a driving rhythm and a well-conceived pressing acoustic. The album closes with "Videotape," a piece wonderfully cadenced by Thom Yorke's enchanted piano, a hypnotic rhythm that accompanies us towards the end, "This is my way of saying goodbye," Thom Yorke will tell us in the track. The record overall is fundamentally narrated in the language of Radiohead, melancholically introspective, a concentrate of cosmic paranoia, dark atmospheres and sad feelings, with underlying latent mysteries where their music forlornly modulates the narration.

I think the choice of only ten tracks is appreciable because it makes for an excellent short album, although it has some undefined traits, and perhaps the album lacks a real ending. It seems the work is left halfway. We are waiting for CD 2 to clarify our thoughts because I believe it is the completion of the entire "In Rainbows" work, even if I do not agree with the choice of dividing the album into two CDs.

Overall it's a well-achieved album, even though it doesn’t boast the features of a legendary artistic work, nevertheless the English band confirms the return of a fertile period, steeped in alternative sound and contents of alienating anxiety, significant of their turmoil.