One of the many intriguing/unsettling things about Radiohead’s decision to issue In Rainbows as an “honesty box” download is that it makes the act of reviewing it utterly pointless. Why listen to what the media has to say about the album when you can download it right now for 5p and judge for yourself?
What’s more, most of the tracks from the album have already been doing the rounds on Youtube, so most serious Radiohead fans have effectively owned the album for weeks anyway.
Still, for what it’s worth, we reckon In Rainbows is a sensational album, their most powerfully atmospheric since Kid A – though it’s perhaps lacking a straight-up, needle-in-the-red anthem to set the pace, in the way 2+2=5 did on Hail To The Thief. Here’s our track-by-track guide.
15 Step
“Did a cat get your tongue?” sings Thom Yorke in his now-iconic, floppy-jawed drawl, continuing his habit of taking everyday phrases and delivering them in such a way as to convey a hidden world of tension and dread. Starts off gently, then morphs into a strange, major-key, dub-tinged freakout. Stop Whispering it ain’t. Obviously.
Bodysnatchers
The closest they’ve come to a straightahead “rock” riff since The Bends, though naturally it’s obscured behind a wall of wailing atmospherics and oblique wordplay. This is bracing stuff: a dark and claustrophobic anti-blues, complete with a frantic coda that finds Yorke repeating the line, “I’ve seen it coming!”
Nude
“Now that you’ve found it, it’s gone,” sings Yorke, his voice sounding purer and more resonant than it has in a long while. It’s a line that recalls the existential terror of How To Disappear Completely (“I’m not here, this isn’t happening”).
You’d call Nude a ballad, only it’s underpinned by a funky, syncopated bass line. If Hail To The Thief was all about bringing back noisy guitars, In Rainbows is all about pounding drums and bass.
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
Jonny Greenwood’s clean, eddying guitar lines build slowly into a shrieking vortex of noise, over which you can just make out the repeated lyric, “Hit the bottom and escape”. A powerful, densely-arranged mood piece.
All I Need
Another spacious groove based around a fat, fuzzy bass line in the National Anthem mould, and augmented by subtle orchestral flourishes. Again, the song creeps slowly to an unsettling crescendo rather than following a standard verse-chorus structure.
Faust Arp
An odd, string-laden, acoustic interlude, the precise mood of which is hard to place. Hard to think of a time when Radiohead have sounded this… bucolic. One imagines that Midlake’s The Trials Of Van Occupanther has been on their stereo of late.
Reckoner
The most instantly moving track on the album, thanks to a haunting, arcing vocal melody and more judiciously deployed strings, fading in and out at key moments in the song. Beautifully modulated and magnificently scored, Reckoner stays locked between your ears long after the speakers fall silent.
House Of Cards
Like many of the songs here, Greenwood’s guitar occupies some un-nameable space between jazz, blues and rock. “Throw your keys in the bowl”, sings Yorke, in what sounds like an unlikely wife-swapping reference: can’t imagine he goes in for that sort of thing. Later, the bit where he repeats the word “Denial” is truly electrifying, a frail and fearful reversal of Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
“Come on and let it out” is the line that gets the now-familiar Thom Yorke incantation treatment, as multi-tracked backing vocals ebb and flow in the background. Unlikely to make it onto anyone’s “Best Of Radiohead” playlists, to be fair.
Videotape
“When I’m at the pearly gates, this will be on my videotape.” A minimalist yet quietly enthralling piano ballad in the tradition of The Fog. Also features, towards the end, some of Phil Selway’s most lop-sided and experimental drumwork to date.
4:10 PM | 10/10/2007
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never got my download
Posted by moon at 7:38 PM | 10/10/2007 | Report Abuse
It's beautiful.
Posted by A Clockwork Orange at 9:50 PM | 10/10/2007 | Report Abuse
i thought it was amazing... some beautiful songs like videotape and nude! bodysnatchers is great ... driving guitars... foot tapping rythms....paranoid lyrics...quite catchy for a radiohead song!! reckoner is one of the best radiohead songs i've heard...
all in all a solid piece of work...(only let down was house of cards)...sounds totally different to what i expected
Posted by sara at 10:59 PM | 10/10/2007 | Report Abuse
I love it. I ran it end to end all shift today at work and was enthralled. Their best since Kid A, kind of a mash of some rock riffs from OK Computer, the spacious grace of Kid A, experimentation of Amnesiac, and a new turn on Radiohead Terrifying.
In my top five best albums of the year without a doubt
Posted by Taylor Shull at 6:17 AM | 11/10/2007 | Report Abuse
I think 'Jigsaw Falling Into Place' is one of the better songs accidently. Also, they totally destroyed 'Videotape'.
Posted by Craig at 10:11 AM | 11/10/2007 | Report Abuse
Accidently...?
Actually
Posted by Craig at 10:12 AM | 11/10/2007 | Report Abuse
Utterly brilliant. Again, it's not quite like any other album. Not a weak song on the record. Coherent, beautiful, strangely minimal yet atmospheric and oddly catchy.
Only Arcade Fire rival Radiohead for sonic genius. Forget all the rubbish that people speak about them and just listen to the songs.
Posted by Sam at 11:10 AM | 11/10/2007 | Report Abuse
I downloaded it yesterday and have only just found the time to hear it through. What a masterpiece, Radiohead yet again manage to make the mind melt.
Posted by James Cumbers at 1:40 PM | 11/10/2007 | Report Abuse
The album floored me... It has a great balance between songwriting and experimental sounds, as in the experimentation is there to add to the atmosphere and feeling as opposed to burying the songs. Brilliant stuff.
Posted by Bren Mcg at 8:20 PM | 11/10/2007 | Report Abuse
This is good, but I miss the freak-out go crazy bits in Ok computer, and what the hell was thom on about? 'It's scarier than OK Computer"? No way, a good but softer album for the softer listener...
Posted by Jules Moscovici at 9:27 PM | 11/10/2007 | Report Abuse
I also think that 'Jigsaw Falling Into Place' is an outstanding track. This is their most complete album since OKC, an album of depth and grace - that it lacks an 'anthem' is just indicative of the fact that Radiohead have moved beyond such things.
Posted by Roy Hughes at 11:49 AM | 12/10/2007 | Report Abuse
What an album, what beauty, what great songs, the best album in years
Posted by Damian Almendarez at 11:10 PM | 13/10/2007 | Report Abuse
Another day, another Radiohead masterpiece...
Unlike much of their previous work, In Rainbows take no time at all to "grow on you". Not at all weird. Just pure awesomeness! For my money, their best since OK Computer and Kid A, if not ever.
"Videotape" seems to be the most bitched-about track, but I really dig the way they've almost made a funeral march of it. I think it's their finest closer since "Street Spirit".
Posted by Arie at 5:17 AM | 14/10/2007 | Report Abuse
'in raimbows' is a great album. a mix of caotic guitar rhythms and beautiful powerchord melodies.the best record of the year...
Posted by renato biao at 10:39 AM | 14/10/2007 | Report Abuse
Fairish review but harsh on "Jigsaw Falling into Place". It has a relentless pulse of paranoia as good as anything they've done before.
Posted by gosborn180 at 9:49 AM | 15/10/2007 | Report Abuse
Is this going to get a full review in the next edition of Q, or in a future edition?
Anyway, personally I think the album is superb. 'Reckoner' is stunning. Feel this album belongs to Jonny Greenwood more than anyone with the amazing orchestral movements
Posted by Joe at 1:02 PM | 15/10/2007 | Report Abuse
Jigsaw "unlikely to make it onto anyone's Best of Radiohead playlists, to be fair"?
I think that is a DARE!
Posted by Arie at 2:24 AM | 16/10/2007 | Report Abuse
For the first week it was overwhelming. I'm now settling into listening and actually hearing it.
It's a wonderful piece of music.
Posted by Michael Nangle at 10:05 AM | 16/10/2007 | Report Abuse
It smells of wonderment!
Posted by Matt at 9:50 PM | 16/10/2007 | Report Abuse
It's simply beautiful. All of the songs. From the beginning to the end.
Posted by PsyCrow at 11:10 PM | 17/10/2007 | Report Abuse
u all have listened to this album? damn u all..cause i havent. of course its brilliant. if radiohead ever put the entire album of just one note, im still gonna love it. come on put it on the shelf right now ok. but what about the cover eh?
Posted by saat at 6:00 AM | 19/10/2007 | Report Abuse
Can't stop listening to Weird Fishes/Arpeggi! My favourite track since (pretty much all of) OK Computer
Posted by fod at 3:14 PM | 20/10/2007 | Report Abuse
This album is brilliant. I love all the tracks - but my favourites are probably 'Jigsaw Falling Into Place', 'Bodysnatchers', 'Nude', 'Reckoner' and 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi'. I'm glad it's getting such a good reaction.
Posted by Sophie at 12:11 AM | 21/10/2007 | Report Abuse
In Rainbows is brilliant. I've been a huge fan since The Bends, and I love it. I love Jigswaws. I saw them play it in Philly, and it was amazing. The song really sounds like nothing they have done in the past. I think you can say that about the entire record. Soulful, mellow, sometimes sexy, dark, paranoid, but as always, very genuine.
Posted by peaches five for fifty at 5:40 PM | 27/10/2007 | Report Abuse
It's really interesting to see what people are saying about this album a month or so on from the original release date. The download system had everyone scrambling for a first review but perhaps it's later on that we are going to get the fairest reflections on the album. I have to say it's still the most listened to album on my iPod. I love it, but then I'm very much used to Radiohead being fantastic when it comes to slow, brooding, melodic and haunting tracks. A lot of my friends downloaded the album because of the price thing even though wouldn't have really bought a Radiohead album otherwise, and to be fair it's impressed most of them, although one or two did feel like it was building to some unleashed monster track that never arrives, or rather, it never quite reaches some maddening height that it promises up until Reckoner or House of Cards, after which you know where the album will go in terms of direction. The best one word description i've heard of the album so far though has to be 'whimsical'.
Posted by Rhys at 2:57 PM | 21/11/2007 | Report Abuse
Simply stunning. A masterpiece, the likes of which we have simply come to expect from radiohead. Yorke has to be one of the greatest artists of all time, nothing "plastic" about him. The album just found a perfect balance between Ok Computer and Kid A in my opinion, though i am yet to decide if it has indeed bettered them. Just beautiful.
Posted by Tim at 1:14 PM | 28/12/2007 | Report Abuse
Jigsaw Falling into Place is on my Best of Radiohead playlist. It's the first track. It's also the last track. I wanted it twice, it's so good.
Posted by Tim at 12:22 PM | 01/01/2008 | Report Abuse
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