The King Of Limbs

If *In Rainbows*—with its direct, live-influenced songcraft and game-changing honesty box pricing—was Radiohead aligning two distinct visions of the band, this eighth record explores a third way. Concise, dance-indebted, and dripping nocturnal electronica, *The King of Limbs* sees them experiment with galloping loops (“Bloom”) and blippy production (“Morning Mr Magpie”). Still, their knack for affecting avant-rock is undimmed, and “Lotus Flower” is a spectral—and appropriately beautiful—career-high.

Radiohead's latest album is their shortest to date, offering eight new tracks that feel like small but natural evolutions of previously explored directions.

With The King Of Limbs—recorded in fits and starts over the course of a year, making it a virtual toss-off by Radiohead’s exacting standards—the band has made its most subliminal record. Dealing almost exclusively in sensation and texture, The King Of Limbs invites comparisons to the challenging abstractions and…

You’ll read a lot in these pages about the method of ‘The King Of Limbs’’ release.

If Kid A and Amenesiac are “twins separated at birth," as Thom Yorke has suggested, then The King of Limbs is their cousin…

Radiohead’s 2000 masterpiece, Kid A, came with a song called “How to Disappear Completely.”

An affirmation of the glory this band has achieved throughout their tenure.

After a brief return to earth to deliver the tart, focused In Rainbows, Radiohead drift back into the ether with The King of Limbs.

They don't disappoint...‘The King of Limbs’ would’ve almost certainly been the most anticipated record of the decade, had it not been for one minor detail: Nobody knew it existed until the week of its release.

Album track “Bloom” never reaches the astounding heights Radiohead has become known for, but then again, neither does The King of Limbs.

The album is the musical equivalent of curling up into a reflexive fetal position and entering a calmer, more pensive world.

After another short-notice Radiohead release, people haven't stopped trading opinions. But snap judgments don't do justice to this difficult, revelatory music, writes <strong>Alexis Petridis</strong>

With each album, Radiohead’s voice evolves; with each album, Radiohead’s voice remains the same.

The King of Limbs makes clear, arguably more so than anything else they’ve released, just how big the gulf is between Radiohead’s cultural notoriety and the kind of music they make.

Radiohead - The King of Limbs review: What if you heard a Radiohead album without knowing it was a Radiohead album?