RADIOHEAD: HAIL TO THE THIEF (2003)
1) 2 x 2 = 5 (The Lukewarm);
2) Sit Down, Stand Up (Snakes & Ladders); 3) Sail To The Moon (Brush The
Cobwebs Out Of The Sky); 4) Backdrifts (Honeymoon Is Over); 5) Go To Sleep
(Little Man Being Erased); 6) Where I End And You Begin (The Sky Is Falling
In); 7) We Suck Young Blood (Your Time Is Up); 8) The Gloaming (Softly Open Our
Mouths In The Cold); 9) There There (The Boney King Of Nowhere); 10) I Will (No
Man's Land); 11) A Punchup At A Wedding (No No No No No No No No); 12)
Myxomatosis (Judge, Jury & Executioner); 13) Scatterbrain (As Dead As
Leaves); 14) A Wolf At The Door (It Girl. Rag Doll).
General verdict: No better way to
fight The Enemy than weep into your sleeve to a bunch of MOR grooves, eh?
Some of the readers might suspect that my
falling out with Radiohead, rapidly accelerating since Kid A, is simply due to an organic «rockist» rejection of
electronic textures. But just as it was never a sin for somebody like, say,
Pete Townshend to immerse himself in the magic of the synthesizer after years
of playing Guitar God, so Radiohead's transition to a new type of sound was
never a sin in and out of itself. And if all sorts of pop bands, from
Portishead to Broadcast, could organically and emotionally integrate analog and
digital, why couldn't Thom Yorke and his bunch of gloomy progressives?
Hail
To The Thief is usually
discussed in the context of Radiohead taking a wary step back, and
reintegrating their dashing achievements with some of the more traditional
elements of a rock band, so you might want to make the prediction that my
assessment of this «comeback» would be more positive. And you'd be right — at
the very least, it is certainly an improvement over the killing-me-bluntly,
bored-robot-on-pension atmospheres of Amnesiac.
But... not by much. Alas, the miracle has not happened. OK Computer was a balloon full of hot air; Kid A was the same balloon with a freshly punched hole; Amnesiac was the aftermath of the
punching; and with Hail To The Thief,
it kind of sounds as if they were trying to re-inflate the balloon, but forgetting
to patch up the hole before doing so.
Like many other records of the same period, Hail To The Thief was inspired by the
rise of neo-conservatism, Bushism, Iraq war etc. — art tends to thrive in and
on hard times. Whether this inspiration truly matters is, however, debatable:
Radiohead had been a gloomy, pessimistic team from day one, and it is dubious
that their OK Computer-era vision of
the world could be significantly exacerbated by ongoing events. At the very
least, if you listen to all their records in a row outside of historical
context, I doubt that Hail To The Thief
will elicit any kind of "oh, now they are really sad and pissed off!" reaction. Actually, I'd even like
to forget about this myself, because it is very difficult and unnatural for me
to think of Radiohead as a «protest band». The artistic persona of Thom Yorke
is not that of a protester — it is that of an anguished weeper, and I'd rather
have him weep in anguish over global causes than picking local ones.
But fine, let us accept that contemporary
events at least gave the band some fresh food for artistic thought, and even
pulled them out of a bit of songwriting rut in which they'd found themselves
after Kid A. How are they cooking
that food? Sure, Hail To The Thief
is a complex, multi-layered record that has a little bit of everything that
used to make Radiohead great or at least intriguing. But everything that there
is here has already been done before — and better. For all my reservations
about Kid A / Amnesiac, the band was
pushing forward there, astounding their fans with results that nobody could
have foreseen. Hail To The Thief, in
comparison, clearly marks the waterline where Radiohead slid off the cutting
edge.
Not that they had any obligations: after all,
you could say the same thing about The Beatles after Sgt. Pepper, because, frankly, how much cutting edge is there in the
White Album? It's just a collection
of very good songs, that's all, certainly nowhere near the level of musical
innovation seen in contemporary Hendrix, Zappa, or Led Zeppelin releases. And
so it was with Radiohead: after a groundbreaking streak extending from The Bends to Kid A, they could certainly allow themselves to just relax and
write songs the way those songs came into their heads, without giving much of a
damn about whether they were still stretching out to new horizons or not. But
this also means that the songs have to be... well, you know. And are they?
As we get into the sphere of the personal, I am
sorry to say that, once again, not a single one of these tunes does anything
for me except being «listenable» and «atmospheric». Soft or hard, light or
heavy, sentimental or aggressive, the music on Hail To The Thief altogether gives the impression of
pale-shadow-afterthoughts to everything that came before it. All the
ingredients are there; they simply never come together in a satisfactory
manner. Doing a song-by-song runthrough would be too painful; I will simply
illustrate the feelings (or, rather, lack thereof) on a few select examples,
starting with the album's four singles.
ʽThere There (The Boney King Of Nowhere)ʼ was
the first out, probably because of its slightly tribal groove and heavy
emphasis on the guitars. Said to be influenced by Can, Siouxsie & The
Banshees, and the Pixies, it is a stuttery, heavily syncopated rocker that has
neither the precision and ruthlessness of Can, nor the theatricality and
aggressive energy of Siouxsie, nor the humor and absurdity of the Pixies. The
grumbly, repetitive guitar riff is a poorly adapted companion to Yorke's nasal
falsetto (as an example of how such things are done right, take Tom Waits'
ʽGoing Out Westʼ which boasts a slightly similar percussive groove, but where everything clicks because all the
instruments and vocals are in tune with each other); the vocal part lacks any
interesting dynamic shifts (a.k.a. «hooks»); and by the time the song kicks
into high gear, with Greenwood letting loose some of his guitar demons in
classic Bends mode, my lack of
interest has become so total that the effort is wasted — too bad, because some
of those climactic guitar overdubs kick notarially certified ass.
The second single was a return to acoustic form
— ʽGo To Sleepʼ, alternating between 4/4 and 6/4 to take the fun out of your
toe-tapping, is a bass-heavy neo-folk freakout with a clearly spelled out
political message ("we don't want the loonies taking over"). We
certainly do not, but instead of putting the loonies to sleep, it nearly
succeeds to do the same thing for me — the guitar melody of the song is
repetitive, monotonous, and bluntly refuses to employ any variations or flourishes
that would deviate it from the formula; and try as he may, but Thom Yorke has
spent so much time whining that when the need finally arises to send out a few
angry barks, he cannot mobilize the necessary resources for this.
So perhaps the opening number, ʽ2 x 2 = 5 (The
Lukewarm)ʼ, released as the third single, might remedy the situation? Hardly.
Its opening melody is played in a fairly typical picking style for Radiohead
(think ʽStreet Spiritʼ); midway through, it becomes a heated-up alt-rocker with
paranoid overtones, but never properly
picks up steam because the acoustic basis does not allow it to, and also
because Yorke's "you have not been payin' attention" bit is ugly as
hell. Not desperate, not thunderous, not aggressive — at best, you can take it
as part of his «mental patient» persona, and I just don't feel that he is as
credible in it as he is in his «desperate romantic» guise. ʽLukewarmʼ is a
perfect subtitle for it — lukewarm it is, as is everything else on the album.
ʽA Punchup At A Weddingʼ was the fourth
(promotional) single, and it is probably the best of the four, but that is not
saying much. There is a meaty, blues-based bass / piano groove at the heart of
the song, but it does not go anywhere in particular (other than being
reinforced with somewhat comically-sounding heavy guitar «grunts» midway
through) and, once again, offers nothing by way of vocal hooks other than a few
more examples of Thom's familiar falsetto. Worst thing is, there is nothing
truly punchy about this song. The
lyrics sound like they want to tear George W. Bush and his friends a new one —
"you had to piss on our parade... hypocrite opportunist, don't infect me
with your poison" — but the music has no energy, bite, or venom to it
whatsoever. Perhaps if they were willing to go along with this funky spirit,
they should have, you know, invited some actual funk session musicians to play
on it? Because the song just drags.
I do believe that is enough for now, because I
could probably write up similar impressions for any other song on here. Some
have industrial overtones (ʽMyxomatosisʼ), some are purely atmospheric ballads
(ʽWe Suck Young Bloodʼ — actually, that song has at least some symbolic value,
because Thom's terminally-ill delivery emphasizes the ridiculousness of the
situation in which the old and obsolete feed on the hopes and futures of the
newer generations; still lethargic, though); all share such common values as feebly depressed mood, repetitive
sonic patterns, lack of vocal hooks, and a feeling of «I've heard this before,
and it used to be much better».
It does feel more cohesive and purposeful than Amnesiac, and it has a smaller
percentage of songs about which I openly wish that they'd never corrupted the
fabric of space and time. But a small part of me even secretly wishes that it
would be crazier than Amnesiac — with an album like this,
active hatred might even be preferable to bored indifference. Hail to the new
Radiohead, the only band in existence endorsing musical sleeping pills as a
weapon against The System.
Those who have accepted the endorsement will be
sleepily happy to know that the expanded version of Hail To The Thief (2009) adds a few B-sides (such as the humorously
titled ʽPaperbag Writerʼ — unfortunately, just as comatose as all its better
known brethren), as well as the entire Com
Lag EP from 2004, which includes some remixed and live versions of Thief numbers. No separate review will
be provided for this entity, for understandable reasons.
"OK Computer was a balloon full of hot air; Kid A was the same balloon with a freshly punched hole; Amnesiac was the aftermath of the punching; and with Hail To The Thief, it kind of sounds as if they were trying to re-inflate the balloon, but forgetting to patch up the hole before doing so." My God... he's killed them
ReplyDeleteHave you explained somewhere why you've abandoned the ABC (of artist) order of the reviews? These new reviews are a lot more vitriolic. This album is mediocre at best but perhaps you're losing whatever joy you may have still had for writing reviews.
ReplyDeleteNo, it's okay. Merely a coincidence that late period Radiohead and Sufjan Stevens albums go hand in hand. On the other hand, we are approaching the golden years of King Crimson and Pink Floyd.
DeleteJoy Division seemed to make him pretty happy.
DeleteI think the prospect of listening to XXX more Chicago albums III times each made him run screaming from the alphabetical order. I was really looking forward to the teens reviews too.
DeleteJoy Division makes everyone happy. That's kind of their 'thing.'
DeleteAh yes, the "Fuck You Bush" album...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbSy5Z6m3u4
2 + 2 = 5, not 2 x 2. Come on, I know you've read Orwell too.
ReplyDelete