First off, let’s get something straight: this review is an incomplete one. This review is a very incomplete one. Come March Radiohead are going to mail out those 10” vinyls with their mysterious album art and one person is going to get that even more mysterious 12” single and the way we look at Radiohead’s 8^th release, The King of Limbs, will shift.

And as there was a live album which shed a whole new light on the minimalist compositions of Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), titled I Might Be Wrong: The Live Recordings (2001), so there will probably be one of King of Limbs, maybe even of In Rainbows and The King of Limbs. Imagine that: the whole e-marketed era, excuse me, Era, of Radiohead being crunched out on stage, the compositions being turned topsy turvy, and the world turning topsy turvy along with them.

So how many people out there still think Radiohead can release something that isn’t absolute genius? I think it’s finally zero. The number was moderate after the tight but occasionally run-of-the-mill rock in 2003’s Hail To The Thief. Doubters became believers, however, after the confidently striding In Rainbows in 2007. The doubter camp actually grew a little bit after the initial release of King of Limbs; I know because I was one of them. “It’s not free? And it’s only eight tracks long? Where’s the fucking single?”  By about the tenth listen of The King of Limbs, however, when ‘Little by Little’ had me dancing by surprise, no, blitzkrieg, and Codec jerked a tear (it was more than that, but I’ll never fess up) out of my eye that I realized The King of Limbs wasn’t what I wanted out of Radiohead. It was what I needed.

Though The King of Limbs might not seem like it at first listen, it’s a logical progression from In Rainbows. If you had asked me what constituted a logical progression the glorious Monday (probably the only time I’ll call Valentine’s Day that) when the release date of The King of Limbs was announced, I would’ve said bigger, more confident, and fuck NBC more colorful. It was these qualities in my opinion that make In Rainbows marginally superior to 1997’s OK Computer. OK Computer’s formula was explosive, but there was a good deal of luck involved (two of the key tracks had been out for over six months before its release, remember, and one of them was titled 'Lucky' ironically enough). In Rainbows is a formula that goes “Bang!” with 100% certainty.

You’d think I’d have learned after 2000’s Kid A that, after releasing a big bold album Radiohead like to retract into a more claustrophobic and experimental musical mode. Well, that’s exactly what they did with The King of Limbs, only this time they’re not whimpering and crying while they do it: they’re snickering. They’re not retracting because they’re afraid: they’re doing it because they couldn’t be more unafraid of the world.

Many if not all of In Rainbows’ elements are weaved into The King of Limbs, though they are difficult to spot at first. The symphony that made the melody of ‘Reckoner’ live up to its transcendental lyrics? It’s made fractured and ghostly in ‘Bloom’. The religious atmosphere of ‘Reckoner’ and the delicate balladry of ‘House of Cards’? They’ve just been merged into the beautifully nude ‘Codex’. The moment to cut loose and dance that was provided by ‘Jigsaw Falling Into Place’? In this case it’s been drawn out: ‘Little By Little’ followed by ‘Feral’ and ‘Lotus Flower’. They’re denser and less upfront than ‘Jigsaw Falling Into Place’, but then Radiohead are smart and sexy enough never to let their listeners have their cake and eat it too. Would you rather have a neat four minute frenzy, or ten minutes of slithery subtle grooves? Would you rather dance for a moment in midday sun, or all night in the rain?

And the theme of In Rainbows: ESCAPE. It’s persisted through all of Radiohead’s work. OK Computer was a whitewashed world with an impending need for escape which every so often, in a beautiful moment of love or rage or any emotion that makes a person human, was fulfilled. Kid A and Amnesiac, however, those were rotting worlds without escape. They were Hell, and Radiohead thankfully dragged us out of them with Hail To The Thief because if they hadn’t some Tolkien-esque tree being would have devoured us and our yuppie suits alive.

In Rainbows was Radiohead’s most up-front look at escapism, with songs like ‘Weird Fishes/ Arpeggi’ (“Hit the bottom and escape”) ‘Faust Arp’ (“What you feel not what ought to”) ‘House of Cards (“Forget about your house of cards”) and Jigsaw Falling Into Place (“C’ mon and let it out!”). The paths of escape were sprinted down further than ever but, with album’s closer ‘Videotape’, Radiohead once again led us to conclude that the world we inhabit, whether it be a whitewashed one, a dark hellish one, or a colorful and chaotic one, must ultimately be lived in and made the best of.

The King of Limbs is the first Radiohead album in which the band finds escape, which is especially amazing because the world of The King of Limbs is the darkest, most tangled and most seemingly inescapable one they’ve made to date. ‘Bloom’ is dark and reverberated and, as a muffled Thom Yorke speaks his lyrics seconds before he sings them, time itself seems broken. ‘Mr. Magpie’ is a little clearer, but not much. You can breathe now, but how long before you find yourself gasping for air again?

‘Little By Little’ is a warped and nauseous dance tune from a parallel universe, but it is here that Radiohead make the beginnings of their Escape, and it’s a violent one.“Obligation/complication/routines and schedules/the drug that’ll kill you/KILL YOU.” This is the panic of an animal in a cage about to get euthanized, and if you can’t feel it in Yorke’s lyrics you sure as hell can in the carnally indulgent instrumental parts. Though ‘Little By Little’ is only four minutes long, it feels like six or seven. And hell, the following three minute IDM dancer ‘Feral’ finds Yorke tossing words out the window entirely.

‘Lotus Flower’ is hard-won power finally shifting, and what a glorious shift it is. “ Listen to your heart” Yorke sings, and his heart is his weapon and he has it poised above his former captor’s throat like an axe, ready to drop. As the beats snicker and the bass burbles, Yorke kinkily runs the blade over his former captor’s body in anticipation of a loud and messy final chop. We never hear this chop: we only hear its echoes in the quiet beauty of ‘Codex’.

The most beautiful thing about Radiohead: they haven’t aged like other bands. While older supergroups like Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, and U2 (Radiohead were once heavily compared to them) have become increasingly politically oriented over the years, Radiohead, despite being more up on politics and opinionated than any of these bands, have moved in the opposite direction with their music. Radiohead have become more personal. At times it’s personal in a playful way, for instance in the description of a swinger party in ‘House of Cards’. Sometimes it’s personal in a downright spooky way, for instance Yorke standing as the curtains close on In Rainbows with a videotape of his entire life in his hands. One thing’s for sure though: Radiohead’s mind’s eye hasn’t shifted to the outside world yet. They’re still looking inside themselves, and it’s a place their listeners can empathize with.

‘Codex’ is a portrait of the soul. It’s a tired and confused soul, but a soul nonetheless. Where Yorke’s lyrics are usually elusive and collage-like, ‘Codex’ is a strikingly upfront narrative about standing alone in front of a lake, about to jump in and end it all. How many people have been here, if not on the brink of suicide then on the brink of ending a relationship or an addiction or just something that's eating away at you, even if what you trade your pain in for is complete nothingness “The water’s clear/and innocent.” Yorke’s warbling and muffled piano accompaniment sounds like it’s already underwater. Yorke is debating whether to jump, but his heart’s already submerged.

‘Codex’ flows into what will doubtlessly be the ‘Everybody Hurts’ of the 21^st Century, a true hymn for humanity: ‘Give Up The Ghost’. The deathly piano of ‘Codex’ morphs into a warm but not overbearing acoustic guitar riff. The percussion is similarly organic, obviously the product of bare hands, drumsticks disintermediated. The rhythm of the entire song is simple quarter note beats, probably akin to the heartbeats an unborn child hears in the womb. The core of the song, however, is Yorke call-and-responding with himself in awe-inspiring simplicity, like a plantation field song.

“Don’t hurt me."

Though ‘Codex’ and ‘Give Up The Ghost’ don’t have half the instant magnetic quality of say ‘House of Cards’, they feel so much more honest and, well, human. Superstar musicians shouldn’t be able to connect with common listeners like this. A band that made its career on navigating hostile utopian soundscapes shouldn’t have ever found its way into an atmosphere as open and joyous as this. But here we all are, singing along.

The King of Limbs concludes the last way you’d thought it would when you were plopped into it a mere half hour ago: happily. With the five minute closing track 'Seperator' (but it feels so much shorter) the nightmare is finally over. Colin Greenwood is no longer a scaly mutant trying to pluck along to the noises of computers programmed by demons: he is just a bassist. Jonny Greenwood isn’t manning God knows what alien instruments: he’s picking out guitar notes like David Gilmour. And Thom Yorke, well, he’s still skirting the line between reality and non-reality with descriptions of changing into fishes and walruses, but with every second it seems like he’s drifting closer back to us. “And if you think this is over then you’re wrong.” Seven minutes ago we were standing at the edge of lake, ready to slip in with dragonflies as our last witnesses. Can you get any more empowering than that? The King of Limbs is actually the only Radiohead album ever that has concluded happily. Kid A ended with 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' but that was a powdered-up happiness that was really bruised and battered underneath. 'Seperator' is happy and peaceful to its core, and though it might sound strange for the original British mope rockers, it isn't. This happiness is what they've been questing for since the beginning.

Despite Yorke reassuring us this isn't over, The King of Limbs feels like finality. The eight track length of The King of Limbs and the complete contentment it fades off into seem like Radiohead saying “Well, that’s it guys.” Even the release announcement on their website (“It’s a full moon”) makes it seem like the day of Radiohead has come to a close. If they call it quits, though, I can’t say I’d be altogether sad; this is a beautiful way to go out. The King of Limbs doesn’t top its preceding albums: it makes them all feel more complete and unified. It doesn’t try to outdo the albums of other musicians either: like Thom Yorke in the ‘Lotus Flower’ music video, it dances alone and insularly and is absolutely content to do so. If Radiohead release an album after The King of Limbs, however, there will have to be even more after it, for the post-1997 world of Radiohead is now complete and a new one must be cast. If Radiohead call it quits and aren’t for quoting themselves however, I’ll toss up an epitaph:

If not for happiness, then against numbness.

-Ian Marshall February 21, 2011 2:34 AM