Album Review: Radiohead The King of Limbs

Cover for The King of Limbs. Photo / Supplied

Rating: 4/5
Verdict: Another futuristic beauty

There are moments on The King of Limbs - like when niggly electronic opener Bloom, starts writhing and clunking away - that are likely to induce a slow-motion fit. Which means Radiohead's eighth album is more of what we've come to expect from the strange British band since they released 1997's OK Computer.

It's intensely beautiful, often chilling while being ridiculously clever and dead-set on minimal simplicity.

That's not to say it's a lifeless, digitally-driven album. After repeat listens, the succulent pulse of Lotus Flower - the video of which sees singer Thom Yorke dancing like a cross between Marcel Marceau, Madonna doing Vogue and Alex out of A Clockwork Orange - is the most jaunty and strangely catchy Radiohead song since the eerie bop of Kid A's Idioteque.

And with its piano accompaniment, Codex has a singer-songwriter heart to it rather than a pacemaker and instead of sounding predominantly dreary, Thom Yorke is sublime, sometimes even sweet on Lotus Flower.

Then there's the funky scuttling of Morning Mr Magpie, while Little By Little's exotic and clattery percussion sounds as if it was recorded at a Moroccan bazaar.

Last track Separator, with its pitter-patter beat, is an uplifting breath of fresh air to end.

However, unlike previous album In Rainbows - which at least had a few guitars and a rowdier, more dynamic side with tracks like Bodysnatchers - The King Of Limbs is more pensive and forlorn. But there's no denying its beauty.

As with the release of In Rainbows, King of Limbs was made available by the band for download followed by a physical CD and vinyl release on March 28. Then, in May, a special collectors' edition will be issued, which designer and unofficial sixth member of Radiohead Stanley Donwood describes as a "newspaper album" containing two 10-inch records, an array of artwork, and a CD all held together by a coloured piece of bio-degradable plastic packaging.

Donwood likens it to a Sunday newspaper that all sorts of stuff falls out of. "I love the tactile nature of newsprint," he told the Independent.

"If you turned the electricity off, digital records would all disappear but newspapers have the physical reality, the longevity, and that's brilliant."

Big ups to that, because newspapers will triumph in the end. You'll see. And Radiohead know these things because for years now they've been making futuristic music that no one actually gets until months, or even years, later.

And The King Of Limbs could very well be another one of those records.

-TimeOut