Customer Reviews

Hail To the Thief (Collectors Edition)

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2 star:		(58)
1 star:		(68)

 

 

Thom Yorke has said in recent interviews that Hail to the Thief will be the last album from Radiohead as you know them. Two years from now, he predicted, Radiohead will reemerge completely unrecognizable. Given that Radiohead could release a blank CD and have the world salivate over it, the possibilities of Yorke's prophecy inspire both wonder and fear. Funny that the band's new CD, Hail to the Thief, should do the exact same thing.

Here it is, Radiohead fans - the final cumulative effort from the most original rock band in decades. Thief sounds nothing like The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, or Amnesiac. Thief sounds everything like The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, or Amnesiac. It is warm. It is cold. It is accessible. It is inscrutable. It is gorgeous. It is terrifying. It is immediate. It is distant. And, above all else, it is fascinating. For the people (okay, everybody) hoping Radiohead might warm up after their Kid A/Amnesiac double dose of nihilism, Thief does just that. But it does even more. Thief isn't another OK Computer. If you want that, you may want to listen to... OK Computer (that is why it exists in the first place). Instead, Thief is a cohesive mishmash of The Bends' immediacy, OK's layered guitar wails, and Kid A/Amnesiac's electronic gurgling. The critical thing is that Radiohead, as a band, have improved in all those musical approaches, and the result is their most sonically diverse album yet. Looking for proof? Just consult "2+2=5", a slow brooding echo chamber that, midway through, blasts into an electric-guitar fury that sounds like, of all things, a Pearl Jam song. Or try "Sit Down. Stand Up.", a forbidding piano haunter that slowly and sickeningly crescendos into an electronic hailstorm.

Those two songs encapsulate all the power and dread Radiohead can generate, and that's only the first eight minutes of the album. It speaks volumes of Radiohead that Thief is considered a "sunny" album, given that its mood falls just somewhere short of Suicidal. But after the stark minimalism of Kid A/Amnesiac (two records so bleak you practically expected them to create a black hole in the universe), the trace of humanity Radiohead injects into Thief makes all the difference. There's - gasp! - an acoustic song ("Go to Sleep"). And Thief's best song, "A Punch-Up at a Wedding", even dabbles in piano-tinged soul.

What keeps all of Thief's pieces together is Yorke's one-of-a-kind voice. Yorke has always sounded like a ghost from the netherworld, returning to warn you about the evils of mankind. But Kid A and Amnesiac distorted his voice even further, depriving it of its immediacy without adding to its eerie qualities (except on Kid A's title track, the only Radiohead song I personally can't stand). Here, Yorke's voice is more or less left alone, and it accents the texture of both the guitars and the electronic blips and quirks, particularly on companion pieces "The Gloaming" & "Backdrifts".

The band is also allowed to flex their muscles. Freakouts likes "2+2=5" are accompanied by slow crunchers like "There There," the lead single, and elegantly personal songs like "Where I End and You Begin" and "Scatterbrain". There's no lack of experimentation - "Myxomatosis" sounds like an orchestra of giant zippers, and "Wolf at the Door" is Radiohead's first Dylan homage - but all of it is exciting and never off-putting.

One could argue that Thief doesn't contain a signature moment of brilliance, such as "Paranoid Android" or "Pyramid Song". But it's the kind of album that reveals itself to you in new ways every time you listen to it. Overall, it accomplishes the impossible - resurrecting the best of the old while refining the new. And regardless of where they go from here, the one guarantee is that Radiohead will continue to go in directions that inspire surprise and amazement.

Why the title? Because had any other band released this album, it would have been lauded as complete genious, a breakthrough in popular music. But instead, Radiohead released it, and as such it draws comparison to the titans OK Computer, Kid A, and even to an extent, The Bends and Amnesiac. Is Hail to the Thief as good as these albums? In some ways, yes. In other ways, no. I will go in to as much detail as I can comfortably muster...

First, a major complaint is the album's cohesiveness. Or more like its lack thereof. It is true that the album stalls and restarts in spots. For instance, while "2+2=5" is like a punch to the face from one fist and "Sit Down. Stand Up" a follow up from the other hand, leaving you dazed and half-conscious during the beautiful, astral scenery of "Sail to the Moon", "Backdrifts" sort of stutters. "Backdrifts" itself is a pretty good song, and fits just fine after "Sail to the Moon." However, it doesn't seem to provide an adequete enough bridge between the first portion of the record and "Go to Sleep." In fact, the problem here may not be "Backdrifts," but "Go to Sleep." It just doesn't fit on the album that well. I love the song but it divides the record up.

"Where I End and You Begin" and "We Suck Young Blood" pick up the album again after "Go to Sleep" drops it, indulging in creepy lyricism and emotionally-over-the-top music. "The Gloaming" is conceptually a high point of the album but musically a weak point. Still, it serves the album just fine where it is, and even manages to segway into "There There" effectively. There's a sort of "gloaming" in the album, everything before this track being the dusk and everything after it the night. This fits with the oftentimes political preoccupation of the album fairly nicely.

"I Will" is a beautiful song, but the start of a scattered, unorganized part of the album. My biggest problems with the consistancy of this album mostly take place in this part. "Punchup at a Wedding" is a groovey, but under-written, song that fits poorly among the other songs. Perhaps if they had given it more time to age, it would have turned out a little better. Not a bad song by any means, but a low point in the album. "Myxomatosis" is a fantastic, adrenaline-driven thrill ride on the wave of surging distorted bass synth and Phil's mind-boggling swung drum beat. As good as this song is, it still doesn't feel as though it contributes to the flow of the album as much as it should.

"Scatterbrain" brings the album back on track, with a crooning melody and guitars that hint back to the beginning of the record. It then flows seemlessly into "Wolf at the Door" which is one of my personal favorites on the album and a brilliant, unique album closer.

The other common complaint is the "straightforward," more live-production style. Radiohead fans have grown accustomed to studio-trickery and songs that are almost identical to their live versions (both in instrumentation and just general sound) was an alien idea to many. While I miss the spaced out, rich production of OK Computer, I have come to appreciate Hail to the Thief as a different album and a different bag of tricks altogether.

While initially I was disappointed in some ways, I have grown to love this album. It contains many of my favorite individual Radiohead songs (2+2=5, Sail to the Moon, Where I End and You Begin, We Suck Young Blood, There There, Wolf at the Door.) It may not work as a full album quite as well as Kid A or OK Computer, but once you stop expecting Radiohead to keep topping themselves, you may realize that Hail to the Thief is a fantastic album. It's a "low point" in Radiohead's discography because it's not genre-redefining, but in the greater scheme of popular music, it is flat out amazing. Its diversity, while breaking up the flow of the album, is also part of what makes the album so charming.

Overall, as a Radiohead album it gets four stars. But held up against the rest of the music world, it gets a five, easily.

After completely changing their sound with 2000's KID A and 2001's AMNESIAC, the fate of Radiohead seemed uncertain. Where would they go next? They'd already passed on their chance to become the world's biggest band, and they'd lost a lot of fans who loved the band for its strong, dreamy 90's alt-rock sound on the group's first three albums. It all came together in 2003, when the band suddenly reappeared with HAIL TO THE THIEF, a 14-track masterpiece spawned from the recent (negative) changes in the political landscape.

A big part of why HAIL TO THE THIEF is such a success is that the band combines the strength, aggression, and subliminal protests of their early albums with the oddity and surreal techno sound of KID A and AMNESIAC. The result is Radiohead's finest album since OK COMPUTER, and also their darkest and most unsettling. On HAIL TO THE THIEF, the band is no longer trying to take a stand. To them it seems that time is up, and they're just going to rub it in our faces, with lyrics like "We can wipe you out anytime," "You have not been paying attention," and "We tried but there was nothing we could do." Listening to this album, I can't help thinking that Radiohead is the best band since The Beatles, and that HAIL TO THE THIEF is the Radiohead equivalent to THE WHITE ALBUM, a diverse collection of songs (though these are, of course, considerably more morose than anything The Beatles ever composed). Though there's not a bad or even lackluster song in the bunch, there are a number of songs that stand out above the rest, such as the firey opener, "2+2=5" (a reference to George Orwell's masterpiece of dehumanization and paranoia, 1984), the rolling "A Punchup at a Wedding", the brilliant "Myxomatosis" (the very sound of rage), the dreamy, drifting "Sail to the Moon", the surprisingly down-to-earth "Go to Sleep" (the most "normal" Radiohead song since OK COMPUTER), and the hopeful yet bizarrely morose "A Wolf at the Door".

The band is at its finest, both performance- and composition-wise. These are some of Thom Yorke's most intricate and meaningful lyrics, to which Thom lends some of his finest vocals. Strongly supporting him are razor-edged guitar from Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien, prominent bass by Colin Greenwood, and impressively varied drumming styles from Phil Selway. The album's themes deal primarily with the feeling of paranoia, distrust, suspicion, and disillusionment from the 9/11 attacks as well as the Iraq War and the U.S. government's handling of the situation (guess who the titular "Thief" is?). It was clear that Radiohead was back in a big way - they experimented on KID A and especially on AMNESIAC, and HAIL TO THE THIEF was where they combined that with their pre-Y2K sound to make one hell of an interesting recording.

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.

With Hail to the Thief, Radiohead seems to have confirmed that they will not be returning to their pure Rock -n- Roll roots that characterized "The Bends" and to a lesser degree "OK Computer". However, Radiohead seems to have struck a very good balance of guitar rock and the electronic beats and rhythms that appeared on Kid A and Amnesiac. Radiohead has once again demonstrated that they are one of the most innovative and creative bands in the world today.

Hail to the Thief is also as lyrically sound as it is musically sound. In an era when top 40 music is by large domniated by musicians with nothing more to sing about than all of their bling-bling, it is always refreshing to hear a band with 'something to say.

Hail to the Thief is very good album that will offer something new each time you listen to it due to the complexity of each song. If you wanted Radiohead to make The Bends over again, this isn't the record for you. If you want to hear a very original yet listenable record, Hail to the Thief will not disappoint!

I could write pages about Radiohead and Hail To The Thief, but I'm going to keep this short and sweet. It might sound redundant, but this is not really Radiohead's return to "rock." I personally thought that Kid A was brilliant and that Amnesiac, despite the questionable sequencing, had great songs. But too many overlook the fact that these albums were not completely void of guitars (see "How To Disappear Completely," "Optimistic," "Knives Out," "I Might Be Wrong") and that they were not outright forays into experimental electronica. Hail To The Thief is more guitar-based, but it continues with the glitch-techno touches that made Kid A and Amnesiac (in)famous. Overall, Hail To The Thief sounds like a step backward on paper, but it's a very logical progression. "2+2=5" is one hell of an opener, moving from calm electronic beats to outright "Just"-era chaos in three minutes. "Sit Down. Stand Up" is beautiful and exciting and again reaches an urgent peak with its percussion and blip-filled ending. "Backdrifts" and "The Gloaming" are sparse songs reminiscent of the electronic aspects of their two previous albums, only much more stripped-down. "Sail To The Moon" and "Scatterbrain" find Radiohead in a soothingly dark and serene mood while "We Suck Young Blood" sounds like a horrifying sequel to "Life In A Glasshouse." In a class of their own are the perfect "There There," probably Radiohead's closest thing to an "anthem" in years, and "Go To Sleep," a driving gem of a rock tune. "Myxamatosis" rides a distorted bassline and eerie feedback in ways only Radiohead could; if any song deserves a single release, here it is. Despite its more conventional nature, Hail To The Thief still requires a few listens to understand. It won't necessarily please those who gave up on Radiohead post-OK Computer, but if one keeps an open-mind and puts aside certain expectations, they should find this to be another classic in Radiohead's amazingly consistent body of work. My album of the year so far.

I'm still really listening to the CD to develop a strong impression, but I thought I'd chime in for those who might be considering picking up the special edition.

Essentially, it's about the same width as a regular CD, but its longer -- about a thumb-to-pinky handspan in height, which means it'll stick out (or up) in a CD rack -- but hey, this is the special edition -- we don't care about how it fits in the CD rack, do we? The packaging has no rigid plastic -- the outer surface is semi-rigid cardboard, so you'll want to be a little careful with it anyway.

Holding the album facing you, in your left hand, the "cover" lifts upwards towards you, along its top edge. The bottom half you'd still be holding in your left hand is a cardboard pouch which holds the CD, with the opening along the top edge. I'm a little nervous with this making it very easy to scratch the CD, and you have to open the cover all the way to get the CD in and out (which is a little clumsy to accomplish with only two hands in mid-air as you'd do in a typical changeout from your CD player) but it looks nice.

The inside of the top/cover is where the goodies really lie. This cover section opens like a book along its right edge. The left half (which is inside of the outer surface of the packaging) has a nice ~6 page lyric booklet. Black and white only, and generally quite spartan in appearance, and yet somehow screaming out classiness. One note: the lyric booklet is "glued" to the cover with that probably-quite-easy-to-remove glue that they use to attach a new credit card to the stiff-paper mailer they're always mailed in. I'm not removing mine, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it came off with very little damage if you tried -- of course, you'd never get it back on, so it doesn't seem an advisable thing to do.

The right half of the top/cover quite ingeniously folds out to a surprisingly large poster, in a theme quite similar to the colored portion of the front cover art. You'll forgive me but I've forgotten how it's attached (and thus whether it is easily/advisably removable).

And finally, while I have not bought the regular-edition CD, it does not appear that there are any special songs or content on the special-edition CD -- just packaging. So it's really up to you whether it's worth it.

My opinion was that after their last three albums, Radiohead deserved every dollar (pound?) that I could spare them, so it was an easy choice for me.

Enjoy! (p.s. "Myxamatosis" is by far my current fave on the new album)

I'll admit, i'm one of those fans who repudiated Radiohead after hearing "Kid A" and "Amnesiac." No matter how hard i tried, i just couldn't get into those albums. So i was hoping HTTT would be more accessable like their earlier albums. and it is. although this isn't a full throttle u-turn back to "the bends" it is considerably more rock and roll. "2+2=5" "go to sleep" and "there there" all have salient amounts of electric guitar. the softer piano ballad "sail to the moon" is a beautiful song that has lyrics that suggest it was written about Yorke's son. and "wolf at the door", my personal favorite from this album, reaches a point of surreal euphoria reminiscent of the beatles. excellent all around album.

People have been talking so much about how this cd will either be a "glorious" return to RH's earlier, rockier styles, or it will permanently exile them from pop music charts as they plunge deeper into eclectic sonic experimentation and artistic grandstanding. It's neither.. rather it is an exact and natural extension of the sounds they began hinting at with Amnesiac.
Kid A suprised the world with its electronic bleep-and-swirl jive, but Amnesiac was dismissed (by some) as just another set of songs from the same mould. But Amnesiac showed Radiohead maturing in its use of autre, electronic jiggery pokery into fluid natural textures, making use of them just as they do any other instrument, witnessed in "Pyramid Song" and "Spinning Plates" both of which are heavily doused in electronics but sound as if they could have come from any decade in modern music.
Hail to the Thief takes this concept further and shows a band very comfortable with who they are and their abilities. They no longer feel the need to experiment so deeply to show their "artsiness" and as a result, simply rock. But don't expect them to "Bends rock" or even "OK Computer rock" for that matter.. this band may be comfortable playing real instruments again, but they are definately not stupid enough to backtrack or devolve musically. The songs here comprise a certain angst that seems so true to todays world, full of lyrics about self-doubt, insecurity, mistrust in others, and the choice of whether to become involved, or watch it at home on the television. We need this album today, and we need Radiohead today, to be telling their message. There are many more radical bands out today, many with harsher views or more personal involvement. But no band as popular as this even comes close to having the balls to name a cd "Hail to the Thief" at a time when country stars get blackballed for simply not liking George Bush. Their mission goes well beyond him though, and is a wake up call to everyone in the world, in their comfy homes, to realize what is going on.
To all the people who wish for a return to their simpler roots, would you have wished for the Beatles to make another "Meet the Beatles" directly after "Sgt. Peppers?" Would music be the same today if they had reverted? I don't think so. Despite sentimental value, Bends-era Radiohead isn't coming back... and this is a good thing in the long run. Nothing can survive long if it doesn't adapt, change, or evolve, and this is especially true for popular bands today.

If you are still wondering if you wanna shell those $$s for this album, you are reading the right review :) I'll try to make this as unbiased as possible: meaning that even though I am a big time fan of Radiohead over the years (from bends through Amnesiac), I'll try to rate this relative to their other ventures. Now if you are totally new to Radiohead, believe me, it's worth investing your time and money to check out their music! Ok, with that bit of an intro, let's head to the track-by track review and figure out how many *s this album actually deserves:

1. "2 + 2 = 5" - 4 / 5 - A nice hard rock song, that reminds me of their good old song "Just". It's not an exceptional track as many have suggested. It's an all out rock song, with none of the radiohead's "it grows on you" factor in there :)

2. "Sit Down, Stand Up" - 4.5 / 5 - Here's where they get warmed up and start showing you the signs of their brilliance! Although this is one of their simplest of songs, it is extremely catchy and sticks in your head!

3. "Sail To The Moon" - 4.5 / 5 - For all those who thought Radiohead was just a beat machine, you'll be surprised with the vocal range of Thom Yorke! This is a beautiful, melodic song with one of the best vocal renditions of Thom.

4. "Backdrifts" - 3.5 / 5 - A cool song with creative electronic beats. But nothing great to write home about.

5. "Go To Sleep" - 4 / 5 - A pretty straight forward rock song. But I am surprised why Radiohead chose this song to be one of their singles.. when they have better songs on the album.

6. "Where I End and You Begin" - 5 / 5 - A classic radiohead track!!! This song really "grows on you"! With really good lyrics and eerie sounds, this is one of the highlights of the album and a delight for the fans!

7. "We Suck Young Blood" - 4.5 /5 - The first few times, I hated this song and kept skipping this song. But after a while, I got hooked and boy, this turned out to be another brilliant track! It starts off real slow, but then, the chorus and the stunning ending elevates this to the Radiohead level!

8. "The Gloaming" - 3 / 5 - An OK song. Reminiscent of their "Kid A / Amnesiac" era.. both of which I liked.. but this track is just average.

9. "There There" - 5 / 5 - One of their very best. I personally think that this is one of the most creative (both musically and lyrically), radio friendly song ever created! The lyrics, vocals, drums and the guitars are all top notch! This is what Paranoid Android is to OK Computer.

"We are accidents waiting to happen..". This track alone is worth the all the $$s!!

10. "I Will" - 5 /5 - Another great song with only vocals and minimal arrangements. The simplicity, and innocence ("little babies eyes..") portrayed in the lyrics do justice to the melencholy of the vocals.

11. "A Punch Up At A Wedding" - 4.5 /5 - A nice, piano laden track. The mood in this song is kinda continued in tracks 13 and 14.

12. "Myxomatosis" - 4 / 5 - "Airbag" Part 2? This is much more straight forward and accessible than Airbag which had complicated arrangements and lyrics. Nevertheless, a good, catchy listen.

13. "Scatterbrain" - 4.5 / 5 - Believe me, this grows on you! A nice song, kinda defines the mood for the next track.

14. "A Wolf At The Door" - 5 / 5 - A great song to finish the album!! With Beethoven's "moonlight sonata" playing in the background..Radiohead close the album with another of their creative masterpieces! The last time anybody tried such fusion were the beatles, (Moonlight sonata is played in the reverse on "Because" from Abbey Road).

So that wraps up this long review! The avg rating comes to 4.35 / 5.0 but I've rounded it up to 5 .. out of the sheer love for Radiohead :) Truly, Radiohead's creative brilliance is sprinkled all over the album, although the album as a whole is not flawless. But these moments of brilliance is what we've all been waiting for!! It reminds us that Radiohead, after all the years, is still capable of producing fresh, non-repetetive, music which puts them in a different league altogether! Hail to the commitment of the band members to produce something different with every release! So, regardless of your previous Radiohead experience, this album, on its own, is worth every penny.