Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool, review: ‘they’ve not sounded so lavish since OK Computer’

The most left-field stadium act in the world return with more extraordinary music
'Richly tapestried ideas': Thom Yorke wraps his distress in oblique imagery on Radiohead's ninth album
Mark Metcalfe/Getty
John Aizlewood13 May 2016

Radiohead are nothing if not predictable.

Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

For their ninth album, they’ve again used a daft guerrilla release method (a download made available on a Sunday evening) and, as ever, they’ve merged leader Thom Yorke’s electronica fetish with guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s cinematic inclinations.

More crucially, the most left-field stadium act the world has ever known still make extraordinary, beguiling music, packed with richly tapestried ideas rather than singalong choruses. Always a man who sounded like he’s just split from his girlfriend, this time around Thom Yorke actually has, and while he wraps his distress in oblique imagery, not for nothing does the spiralling Ful Stop begin with an accusatory “you really messed up everything”.

Backed by orchestra and choir, most sweepingly on Glass Eyes, they’ve never sounded quite so lavish since OK Computer or so affecting since The Bends.

(XL)

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