Radiohead - The King Of Limbs (CD, Vinyl LP)

Who the hell are these weird bastards? I've obviously no eye for art as I love the sleeve for this album - some sort of amorphous jellyfish ghosts in some psychedelic woodland setting. But everyone else here thinks it sucks. 'TKOL' has divided opinion like every Radiohead album does. It's not experimental enough for the chin strokers & is a bit too off-beat for the anthemic pop kids. There's no anthems on here! Oh no. But as far as sublimely metronomic, minimalist rhythms, cascading electronics & smoky little grooves 'n' licks go, this album has plenty to delight. The drums are played strangely off-centre, in a hypnotic, cyclic manner on many of the initial tracks, giving off a beautifully lopsided impression, and in conjunction with the warm, spacious & sometimes dubby production, these fascinating, ever-evoving flecks and splashes of sonic detail give the opening salvo of songs a really cohesive feel. Nothing odd here, or particularly tuneful - they just sound like a progressive-minded band having a loose cerebral jam. It all sounds slightly Can- inspired but you cannot deny the originality of their own palette of scintilating production techniques here. Thom's voice is always a bit inpenetrable to me, I usually just let it flow & don't pay it much heed. I merely marvel at the production; the organic & the electronic merging to create a vibrant, swirling intoxicating soundworld - all you can ever wish from these lads. Curiously, Side two's opener, the project's "flagship" track 'Lotus Flower' is to my mind one of the leanest, laziest & least enjoyable tunes here. I love the ambient ephemera & the melancholy organ line beneath , but alas, the track seems quite dull & empty (yet strangely, I dig his vocals on this one the most) The album starts to sag a little for me with the more ballady tracks although there's plenty of loving touches that impress. This (relatively short) album closes with another steady percussive track called 'Seperator' which is once again full of pleasant detail but seemingly less lush than the tracks on Side One. Probably the most satisfying album by them, from a personal perspective, since Amnesiac, however it possibly has more in common, sonically, with either 'Kid A' or 'Hail to the Thief'?