Music: 02/18/11 (Radiohead)

Radiohead's The King of Limbs **** - Remember when they released In Rainbows?  Pay what you wanted for the album.  It shouldn't be a shock that they decided to release an album on a Saturday.  Only to outdo themselves again and release the album a day early!  When I first listened to Kid A on the heels of the brilliance of OK Computer, it was jarring, incredibly disorienting, but it was a masterpiece in its own right.  It was the album that destroyed rock & roll.  I'm listening to The King of Limbs on the heels of the brilliance of In Rainbows and it's déjà vu.  Just when you think you've figured out Radiohead, they throw a curveball and laugh when you swing and miss.  They take all of their past albums and congeal it into a cohesive mass that is their next album, which somehow feels nothing like their prior works but is distinctly Radiohead.  I remember on Kid A how it was so odd that guitars didn't appear until the third song ("How to Disappear Completely").  On The King of Limbs, the first guitars don't appear until the seventh track (the guitar on the second track is so monotone and beat-like, this almost doesn't even count).  In fact, where did all the electric guitars go?  Alien electronica transitions into simple piano and acoustic-based numbers.  But you go with it.  Then take the song "Codex."  It's a song with beautiful and minimal horn arrangements.  Yet this is jarring because Radiohead uses horns for cacophony (think "The National Anthem").  All of their past albums seem to end on a lonely and often pessimistic farewell.  Not the case on this one.  The albums becomes progressively harmonious.  OK Computer and In Rainbows explode whereas Kid A and The King of Limbs are packed like sardines in a crushed tin can.  This is an album only Radiohead could make.  It's confusing; it's simple, it's complicated, it's hard to listen to, it's easy to listen to, it's familiar, and it's completely alien.  Above all else, it's strangely addicting.  It'll add to the great debate: What is Radiohead's finest album?  Finally, there's the rumor: Did Radiohead release only half of the album?  I eagerly await at the plate and wait for the next pitch.