A Moon Shaped Pool may be the most Radiohead-ey thing the quintet has ever released. Spectral, cavernous, and beautiful, the record sounds like what I hear in my head when I think of the band. Perhaps it is the fact that some of the songs have been in gestation for years, including long-time fan favorite "True Love Waits," which here morphs into a perfect piano ballad and serves the role of crushing closer. This is not to say the album does not feel fresh or in-the-moment, especially with exciting instrumental episodes like the savage col legno strings on opener "Burn the Witch," the soft-hewn keys on "Daydreaming," or the gushing electronica and dueling guitars of "Ful Stop." It just feels strangely familiar in all the best of ways.
Radiohead's symphonic record is an easy shorthand. Jonny Greenwood's cinematic arrangements (with strings provided by the London Contemporary Orchestra) cut through many of the tracks in arresting ways. The musicianship is phenomenal, as you would expect, and individual highlights like Yorke's striking piano/keyboard runs, Jonny Greenwood's ridiculous guitar solo (a Radiohead guitar solo!) on "Identikit," or Colin Greenwood's slithery, underpinning bass lines, at this stage in their careers, easily can be taken for granted. But one thing is certain: the band has created something massive sounding and deeply intimate in one fell swoop. "This goes beyond me, beyond you," Yorke sings on "Daydreaming," which seems to capture the record's ethereal quality.
At the turn of the century, the band deconstructed the titanic rock record - their own! - on Kid A and then, after furious political agitation on Hail to the Thief, arced through reinvigorated human drama on In Rainbows. The King of Limbs followed, which felt more like a collection of disparate sonic experiments pulling the band in myriad directions: skittering electronica, haunting acoustic rock, and down-tempo dirges to name a few. A Moon Shaped Pool seems to move beyond any useful narrative. Out past the paranoia or the politics, it settles into the thick of thick things, weighing and considering life's mysteries, resisting at times the nagging sense of dread with something approaching resolve. But how long can the center hold?
If we apply that question to the band, apparently, longer than anyone should expect. Before releasing this record, Thom Yorke privately wondered if anyone cared anymore and lowered his expectations considerably, uncertain how a middle-aged British band would compete in the Insta-disposable, digital musical age. After all, it had been five years since their last record, which is a lifetime in today's hyperactive media consumption. His concerns, of course, were unfounded. A Moon Shaped Pool was met with wide-spread critical acclaim and acceptance. The band, it would seem, is for the ages.
And it's hard to argue otherwise. Radiohead have now released five bona fide classics in three different decades (The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, In Rainbows, and A Moon Shaped Pool), while interspersing them with one incredible record (Hail to the Thief), one strange but difficult mind-meld of a record (Amnesiac), one understated and underrated record (The King of Limbs), and one solid debut that contains an iconic song that could have initially served as a death knell (Pablo Honey and "Creep"). Another way to appreciate what the band has done can be said like this: Radiohead has experienced creative peaks more than twenty years apart, which far exceeds the time of the relatively short creative range of The Beatles (six years), Led Zeppelin (ten years), and The Smiths (four years). Any fan of rock music knows that bands are not supposed to have this kind of shelf-life.
But Radiohead persists. Is it their ability to experiment and reinvent? Is it the band's tonal breadth or instrumental depth? Is it Yorke's range of vocal styles and lyrical pursuits? Is it their enduring collaborative spirit? Perhaps all of these reasons and more. One critic recently wondered whether the group is the last important band on earth. Having scaled mountains at the height of the record industry and the MTV monoculture and then successfully transitioned into the post-iTunes era, it is a worthy question to consider. The band has bridged a divide that swallowed up most of their initial competitors, and those that crossed over have rarely been this relevant.
Just know this. My first listen to A Moon Shaped Pool came while walking my dog, while the low-hanging clouds of a wet-soaked Mother's Day held in the smell of wet grass in my lungs. Perfect weather to accompany the anticipated release. And I had that giddy moment where just at the midpoint of my first listen, I understood that I was hearing a masterpiece. It is one of the most exciting feelings any music nerd can have during a first touch: self-aware reckoning of a classic before the music has even stopped playing.
1 comment:
Nailed it.
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