Hail to the Thief [Vinyl]

"2 + 2 = 5": No it doesn't! Nor does "ANOTHER arpeggiated guitar riff intertwined with a treated rimshot beat" + "a vocal mannerism completely ripped off from David Thomas (Pere Ubu)" = "an effective album opener".
"Sit down. Stand up.": Write better lyrics. Or shut up. This track has some interesting things going on instrumentally, but how many times have I heard those drum samples?!? Also, those laser guns sounded pretty stupid 25 years ago when Joy Division used them on "Insight" - chances are they ain't gonna sound much better now.
"Sail to the Moon.": This track is pretty good, but it's entirely interchangeable with at least 5 or 6 other Radiohead songs.
"Backdrifts.": Once again, I've heard all of these drum samples a million times. There are definitely some interesting melodic sounds though... and some effective vocal doubling. I guess this one's a keeper.
"Go to Sleep.": This just sounds like a bad rip-off of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Breaking the Girl" to me for some reason. That was a great song. This is not.
"Where I End and You Begin.": This track is AWFUL! It sounds like a throwaway track from Can's "Tago Mago" with embarassing 'eerie' keyboards. Let's be innovative and adventurous by throwing an odnes-martenot on top of a boring drum and bass combo. "I will eat you alive, I will eat you alive" - the gore imagery is just stale at this point. Case in point:
"We Suck Young Blood.": I wish I was listening to Nick Cave instead of this, even though his last album was pretty much garbage also. But "No More Shall We Part" is probably the best pop/rock album of the past 5 years - so buy that instead of this. This song should just be called "We Suck."
"The Gloaming.": Looks like somebody discovered Max/MSP. This would be much better without the vocals (as is the case with most Radiohead). Pretty good minimalist electronic - the sounds should be much more varied, though. Check out Autechre's "Draft 7.30" if you're into this - Radiohead wish they had an ounce of these guys' imagination and technique, and it's probably the best album of the past 7 or 8 years.
"There there.": The drums (and video) are a direct rip-off of Bjork's (pronounced Bajork) "Human Behaviour"... but I'll admit this is a really great song. The vocals are less mannered and the lyrics are more understated than the rest of the album. It's about time they have some hooks on this thing! Interesting guitar sounds.
"I will.": Again, interchangeable with at least 5 or 6 other Radiohead songs.
"A Punchup at a Wedding.": This drum intro is embarassing. And then you have to go and steal the riff from Beck's "Loser"! A terrible example of layering electronic sounds (that don't blend at all) on top of a dull backing-track in a sorry attempt to make it "complex" and "heady".
"Myxomatosis.": I'm not sure what to say about this. That Moog sound is pretty Eno-riffic but I think it would have been better saved til the climax of the song. It becomes too grating and repetitive after a while. I like the other synth sounds, but again the lyrics have to go.
"Scatterbrain.": "Hey Johnny, it's almost the end of the album and we only have one song with an arpeggiated guitar riff intertwined with a rim-shot/hi-hat beat! Whip us up another one!" "No problem, Thommy! Just don't forget to use your same cloying vocal mannerisms!"
"A Wolf at the Door.": A nice change of pace in the vocal delivery. Thom should quit Radiohead and do a solo rap project a la Zack de la Rocha. That's the best idea I've ever had. Crap, now he's singing again... at least he's avoided the falsetto for a good three minutes. Whoomp, there it is!
OK, album over, hopefully I'll never have to listen to this all the way through again.

Epilogue: I've decided that the biggest problem with this band is that there's no sense of JOY in their music. Yeah we get it, the world's a terrible place... Bowie was a paranoid android 25 years ago, but he also had a sense of the good life. So, in conclusion, buy Can's "Tago Mago", Eno's "Another Green World", Bowie's "Scary Monsters", Nick Cave's "No More Shall We Part", and Autechre's "Draft 7.30" and you'll hear complete mastery of everything Radiohead tries to accomplish on this album but simply cannot.


Objectivity   June 19, 2003
Michael Edward May (St. Cloud, MN)
18 out of 20 found this review helpful

Any hardcore or even slightly faithful Radiohead fan should know that when picking up a new album by then that any expectations of the album should be thrown out the window. Radiohead's albums are too individualistic and each have their own unique identity and should be looked at for their own worth, not compared to previous work. Objectivity is the key. It disturbs me when people say things about this album or Amnesiac like "It's great because they play guitars again" or "It's sort of like a mix of the techno on Kid A and the riffs on the Bends". Radiohead is no longer about giving people what they want based on what they liked about their already released music. They are a band constantly changing and maturing while still sounding like Radiohead in a way only Radiohead can. It is for this reason that I listened to HTTT as it's own album, not expecting it to sound in particular like anything else. It is more rewarding to be surprised by what you hear then to be dissapointed because it wasn't what you expected to hear.

Let's be frank here. "Pablo Honey" suffered because they simply weren't ready to put out an album yet and the band didn't really have an identity. "Bends" was for the most part great but was still flawed by a bit of overly poppy production and I'm sorry to say but some of the molodies that Thom Yorke wrote on the album were bland and uninteresting. OK Computer had great innovations and the first half of the album is some of the most incredible and original sounding music ever made by a traditional rock line-up, but it loses steam in the second half because they couldn't keep up that level of quality throughout the whole album. The last couple songs seem to be only half-realized. Kid A, up until now, is truly their greatest album, and it is only because of the initial shock of the change in direction (which really shouldn't have surprised anybody as much as it did if they would have considered the quantum leaps they had made from album-to-album before Kid A's release) that people failed to realize it was their most flawless album. Amnesiac suffered because with the exception of the last song the album was a bunch of strung-together, half-realized experiments and not real songs. Sorry to break it to you, but "I Might Be Wrong" is not a good song just because it has a prominent guitar part (In fact, I consider the guitar riff on that song to be the worst one they ever wrote, anything on Pablo Honey excluded).

You angry yet? Well have a point. I love each of these albums dearly, but they all have flaws which most people seem to gloss over. So here's my point: I believe that Hail to the Thief is the closest Radiohead has come to making a completely flawless album. By the third listen I have grown to love every song. The sound they conjure up is completely their own, and is not simply a mixture of the sounds they used on their previous albums. Yorke's voice is abolutely spectacular. I love the incorporation of piano as a major part of the album. The instrumentation, whether electronic or organic, drives the songs and never bores me like it did on previous outings. The only flaw I can find in the album is some of the backgound music is too quiet and Yorke's voice overpowers it, making it too hard to hear at some times. I will listen to this, as well as any other Radiohead release, and enjoy it's greatness on it's own terms for years to come.


A THIEF ONLY OF THE BANALITY OF ROCK MUSIC   July 31, 2003
Shashank Tripathi (Gadabout)
18 out of 26 found this review helpful

It is refreshing to see Radiohead attempt something zanily over the top as this, full of carefree blend of rock and roll with electronic experimentation. I mean, look what Metallica have made of themselves...you could pick up any album from them blindfolded and end up with pretty much the same music. I disagree with a bevy of other reviewers that "this is not Radiohead". This is as much Radiohead as Zooropa was U2. Some ultra-creative bursts of guitar and synthesizer do not a new group make, it is just a band coming up with something they haven't tried before.

That said, if you don't dig Radiohead in general, the NATURE of their music I mean not any song in particular, then there may not be anything spectacular here for you to relish or change your stance. But if you care about novel beats and beeps (e.g., "The Gloaming"), or spooky vocals ("We Suck Young Blood"), or even a cacophony of guitars on steroids ("2 + 2 = 5") then you will find yourself duly compensated.

Definitely worth a shot!


I'm sorry, Radiohead has lost it.   September 8, 2003
Matthew Jonathan Gaspar (Tinley Park, Illinois United States)
17 out of 71 found this review helpful

I recomend fans listen to the album a bunch of times without regard to radiohead's history, the ... critics, and the views of those around them. I think they will find that is not technically bad, it's really not good at all. It lacks passion. Passion is easily recognized butt hard to define. Pablo honey had the passion but the wrong direction - yeilding a few good tunes. The Bends and O.k. computer had the passion and the direction, resulting in brilliance. They started to loose it during kid A, half of which is brilliant. Hail to the thief is so damn boring. One cannot not image them and their producer, engineer, etc, sitting around and feeling confident about this release. Many will listen and convice themselves that this album is good. Rember fans, you owe nothing to Radiohead; it's o.k. to say you don't like this album. Come on, it's o.k., the karma police won't hunt you down.