Resurgent Radiohead release In Rainbows

The blogosphere has been alight recently with excitement about the new Radiohead album In Rainbows, and the band’s characteristically unusual method of vending it to the listening public.

I have refrained thus far from offering my tuppence worth (anyone genuinely interested will have known for some time the idiosyncratic release details), but having parted with my chosen cost and listened to the record a couple of times after it became available yesterday, I must rip from my tortured soul the following remarks.

It takes something rather compelling to sunder me from a book or a newspaper on my daily commute, but listening to a new Radiohead recording is one such compulsion. In Rainbows does, it must be said, reward the effort. Although any album, and particularly an album by Radiohead, can only be evaluated properly after a number of listens and possibly even after a number of weeks, first impressions are that In Rainbows sets a welcome course between the abstruse experimentation of Amnesiac and Kid A and the distorted, guitar dystopias of OK Computer.

What I can say, with little reservation, is that In Rainbows is a more impressive album that Hail To The Thief.

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