Album review: King of Limbs

It shows how much I am out of touch when the first thing I knew about the new Radiohead album, King of Limbs, was when I received an email from their website. It is available now as a download for £6, which is a bit steep compared to their last album (In Rainbows, which was free to download at first), but I forked out anyway. The album is little over 30 minutes, and contains 8 tracks (like the limbs of an octopus?), mostly involving complex drum loops, floaty sound fragments and dubby echo effects, modulated vocals and very little guitar.

At first I was distinctly underwhelmed and felt like it all sounded like background music, but after a third listen it is definitely growing on me. The music sounds mostly computer generated, with nods to the likes of Lamb, Massive Attack, Aphex Twin and UNKLE, and is a progression of the techno-fiddiling that began on Kid A. 'Bloom' has a laid back jazzy feel while second track 'Good Morning Mr Magpie', which first appeared on the Radiohead TV DVD as a solo acoustic performance from Thom Yorke, bounces along to an insistently funky riff. Track 3 'Little by little' has the first recognisable guitar and recalls the minor key progression of '2+2=5' from previous Radiohead album 'Hail to the Thief'. The songs in the second half of the album put more emphasis on the vocals, 'Codex' has some nice big shimmering keyboard and last track 'Separator' has an uplifting melody with some spacey chords to finish on.

It feels a bit lightweight for a Radiohead album, but its so short you can happily play it again straight away when its over. It's different enough from their previous output, while still remaining recognisably Radiohead and shows how the band are not scared to continuously change their style. Deep down I would like them to come out with a White Album-style stripped down acoustic album next, but they'll probably continue their metamorphosis into a cybertrance outfit. Which wouldn't be so unwelcome.

British heritage

On the breakfast news today there was a feature on vandalism and theft of heritage sites. They showed an old farm that had been set ablaze, some 200 year old paving stones that had been nicked ("to break up for a rockery") and a large fortification from one of the World Wars that had been graffiti'd inside. The worst was a Roman settlement that had been ruined by people driving through it in their 4x4s. Probably on the way to picking their kids up from school.

Its a heartbreaking state of affairs, but it occured to me that maybe a lot of people just don't feel a connection with the past, or value it in anyway. After all, todays society is all about now, now, now, and faster, faster, FASTER! There is so much history in this country that it is almost overwhelming, and what do you see when you look to the future? The country being a shadow of its former self, slowly sinking down into obscurity. No jobs, no joy, living in a police state, being fed by nanny robots. The country is cluttered up by relics, reminders of halcyon days.

The main headline on the local news, which is basically a series of comedic interludes, was that the oldest police horse in Manchester has retired. That's the major news for the whole of the north-west of England. No wonder Londoners think everyone else is provincial. Nothing to worry about for us northies though, apart from where the next cheese is coming from.