The release of In Rainbows<\/i> shocked the music world and many Radiohead fans this month. Obsessive fans were only given about a week to salivate and speculate about what direction Radiohead was going with this release and whether this album would continue Radiohead\u2019s 10-year-plus streak of stellar albums. Fans weren\u2019t given much time to work up their expectations. <\/p>\n
If fan expectations were slightly lower due to the waiting time, In Rainbows<\/i> sounds like a band that went into the studio with no expectations other than to make some sense out of the last 10 years. As good as Hail to the Thief<\/i> was, the album did sound like one that was recorded for two purposes: to satisfy a recording contract and incorporate more guitar to satisfy fans who were put off with the electronica-heavy Kid A<\/i> and Amnesiac<\/i>. <\/p>\n
Though In Rainbows<\/i> starts off with the relatively underwhelming \u201c15 Step,\u201d the album quickly finds its momentum with \u201cBodysnatchers.\u201d Splitting the sound up in both earphones, you hear buzzing atmospherics in your right ear and some wicked distortion that sounds like a broken printer courtesy of Johnny Greenwood. It perfectly captures the claustrophobic grandeur that Radiohead nails so deftly. <\/p>\n
Whereas Kid A<\/i> and Amnesiac<\/i> buried Thom Yorke\u2019s vocals under a blanket of techno blips, In Rainbows<\/i> has Yorke\u2019s vocals at the forefront for most tracks. The most striking examples are \u201cNude\u201d and the lovely, weary \u201cHouse of Cards\u201d (the song that promises to supply the \u201cget out your cigarette lighters or cell phones\u201d moment for their next tour). Lyrically, In Rainbows<\/i> represents the most straightforward batch of songs the band has recorded since OK Computer<\/i>. <\/p>\n
One reason behind the looseness of In Rainbows<\/i> could be the lack of pressure to deliver another album to fulfill a recording contract. Another reason could be that most of the songs off of In Rainbows<\/i> have been road tested for the better part of two years. Even during their Hail to the Thief<\/i> tour, the band was slowly trying out new songs — and using the road to perfect their sound before they got into the studio. This can be heard not only from Radiohead\u2019s much-touted strategy of releasing its album online and giving fans the option to pay nothing (or 5 pounds, or whatever) isn\u2019t as revolutionary as the press is making it out to be. Wilco notoriously had Yankee Hotel Foxtrot<\/i> available online months before it was released as a full-length CD. And recently, Nine Inch Nails (who have also celebrated being labelless) streamed Year Zero<\/i> a full two weeks before the album\u2019s release date. <\/p>\n Rumors are already spreading about the \u201cproper\u201d release of In Rainbows<\/i>. A few fan sites have speculated more songs could be added to the release, which is slated for January 2008. Adding new songs to a complete album is always a gamble, especially if it\u2019s as good as In Rainbows<\/i>. Currently, the album is almost perfect in its length, clocking in at a lean 42 minutes. Also, adding additional songs gives off an air that the album we currently have is incomplete. <\/p>\n Right now, In Rainbows<\/i> sounds like a finished work. The only thing that\u2019s missing is a CD cover with liner notes, and that’s a great place for a disc to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":29034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5849],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-40549","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-radiohead","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40549"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40549"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}