Radiohead: Hail to the Thief

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * )

Well they've plugged the guitars back in.

That crackle and crunch is the first sound you hear on this, Radiohead's sixth album, the one that is meant to mark a return to their grander art-rock after the sometimes brilliant often head-scratching experimental urges of the previous difficult duo Kid A and Amnesiac.

But if they've turned the voltage down on the electronica dabblings a little, and the decibels up on those amps, Radiohead can still sound a bit caught in a no-man's land of their own making.

The songs here are deliberately angular things which start, build, fold into themselves, then expire without leaving much to hold on to. It's true that some are quite thrilling for doing just that.

But if songwriter Thom Yorke's lyrics are him railing at a world gone mad yet again, he's largely not making very convincing work of it. The result means that Hail to the Thief stops building into anything other than a collection of Radiohead songs which largely aren't as memorable as previous Radiohead songs, nor have the advantage of the sonic surprises that those previous two albums delivered.

Working against it is the first half of the album not being able to sustain much momentum. That's even after opening track 2 + 2 = 5 swings from its delicate beginnings to a punk-paced roar, or Sit Down Stand Up does the same long-fused thing and bursts into frenetic drum'n'bass rumble. A few tracks later, Where I End and You Begin's propulsive groove reminds of the results of producer Brian Eno's work with U2 on their late 80s/early 90s albums.

Thankfully, though, the second half comes with enough songs that transcend all that lateral-Radioheadedness. Especially There There, with its mix of Phil Selway's cool-swingin' drums, the increasing-layers of guitars and Yorke rediscovering his joy of a decent chorus. Likewise, A Punchup at a Wedding shows they can still ride a fine line between beauty and bile with its bass- and piano-framed arrangement carrying lyrics which make an unusual amount of sense. Like Coldplay painted in abstract, and with anger.

The late-arriving Myxomatosis is true to its title with an eye-watering attack of synthesizers before the hymnal Scatterbrain and then the final A Wolf At the Door which Yorke closes with another verbal rant cum word-association exercise which leaves us none the wiser.

It sounds like Radiohead are still off on the tangent they decided upon after 1997's OK Computer became the reference point for the rest of their career. If this can sometimes sound like the same band as the geniuses behind that one, then that's probably by accident rather than design .

Yes, the guitars have returned, slightly as it turns out. But Radiohead's ability to captivate the head or the heart is sadly on the wane.

(EMI)