Currently enjoying “The King of Limbs” by Radiohead

Radiohead released their eighth and latest album over the weekend, and as always, it’s a fine one. The eight tracks that make up Radiohead’s shortest record to date are jittery and jarring, generally hearkening back a little more toward Kid A than to later, more organic albums like Amnesiac or Hail to the Thief. But it’s a very cohesive record, and one in keeping with Radiohead’s continuing trajectory.

It’s tough these days to talk about what a Radiohead fan might expect from a new album. After all, we’d be talking about one of the most willfully eclectic bodies of work in the world of pop music today, featuring seven albums that bear at best a passing resemblance to each other.

What The King of Limbs does, surprisingly, is bridge the gap among a number of those records. There’s something here for just about every one of Radiohead’s fans, from those who prefer the glitchiness of their more experimental records to those who prefer the more basic, instrumental melancholy of their once and future work. That’s a pretty bold and economic feat for such a brief record.

Currently, The King of Limbs is only available as a digital download. CD and vinyl releases will follow at the end of March, and a special “newspaper” edition will be released in May. In the meantime, you can visit the band’s official channel on YouTube to watch the video for “Lotus Flower.”

Posted in Currently Enjoying