ARTIST: Radiohead
ALBUM: A Moon Shaped Pool
LABEL: XL
RELEASE DATE: May 8, 2016
SURPRISE!
Written by Silas Valentino
In the age of surprise album releases, Radiohead delivered a spontaneous evaporation. In the weeks leading up to May 8 – which would ultimately be the release date of their ninth LP: A Moon Shaped Pool – Radiohead’s website and Internet profiles began to cease in their existence. Instead of just singing about it, Radiohead showed how to disappear completely until out of the digital shadows came a 15-second snippet of what was to be the record’s leading single “Burn the Witch” – released via Instagram of all mediums. In the 23 years since their debut album, Radiohead have consistently delivered surprises – via sonic shifts or album rollout methods – and this latest effort has them conquering both.
Radiohead’s previous LP, 2011’s The King of Limbs, was a tease. Although a worthy display of complex rhythmic structures, it felt undercooked and left many fans begging for another go around. Not a band known for repetition, Radiohead have erased any doubt on A Moon Shaped Pool with a fastidious record riddled with robust string and choir arrangements (courtesy of the London Contemporary Orchestra) under the direction of guitarist Jonny Greenwood. He supplied the triumphant and eerie film scores to several films by director Paul Thomas Anderson and if A Moon Shaped Pool is to be summed up neatly, it’s when Greenwood’s orchestration met the rest of the band’s art rock. And no other song efficiently encapsulates this relationship like the album opener “Burn the Witch.”
We open with a boiling panic like a train destined for an off-rail disaster. The string section plays col legno battuto – that is to say “hit with the wood” – where string players use the wooden side of their bow to strike the strings creating a chugging rhythm. Drummer Philip Selway crafts a delicate beat produced on electronic percussion that lightly carries the unsettling baroque pop single into a final 30-second climax of ascending notes and string screeches. Quickly the chaos is contained as the remainder of A Moon Shaped Pool is much more lucid and calm but Radiohead have instilled a sense of discomfort and spend the remaining minutes explaining as to why.
A relationship ends after 23 years and Thom Yorke, for the first time since Radiohead have begun releasing music, is broken up. He separated with his longtime partner Rachel Owen just before the majority of A Moon Shaped Pool was to be recorded and the ghosts linger, sometimes transcending in gorgeous ways. While previous Radiohead albums remain distinguished by monumental songs such as “Karma Police,” “Everything In Its Right Place” and “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi,” A Moon Shaped Pool offers fleeting moments throughout the album in lieu of structured song. The second guitar line providing a contrasting melody that interrupts the mood during “Ful Stop” at the 3:29 mark or the mid-song change up in “Present Tense” as Yorke pleads “In you, I’m lost” are just two of the strongest examples of aural euphoria that lay nestled beneath these tracks awaiting to be cherished. This is what it means when we talk about the rewards that come with extensive listening; Radiohead have never made it easy.
We close with a familiar friend but retouched and sung with heavy tears considering its influences. “True Love Waits” has been a fan favorite since the band began playing the ballad live in 1995 but the only official recording has been the audience assisted, guitar-plucked version released on 2001’s I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings. 21 years after its debut “True Love Waits” arrives alongside minimal piano notes that drip off Yorke’s fingers. It’s an all-too fitting conclusion to this album, which will inevitably stand among Radiohead’s discography as their love-lost LP.