A Moon Shaped Pool - Radiohead (2016)

Discog-ology: Going through an artist’s albums, or at least the ones I haven’t written up yet, in order. Hopefully will be about once a week.

And so, here we are. It’s been almost a decade since Radiohead released new music as a band. This would be an odd one if it ended up being the last Radiohead, but if there’s more it could become a watershed moment.

The band is less interested in shocking us or weirding us out here. They just do what they’ve always been quite good at: rocking tunes that are inventive without (usually) being alienating.

Jonny Greenwood arranges the strings, which feature on a lot of the tracks. He’s no novice at writing for strings, having both orchestral music and movie scores under his belt.

There’s a lot here but like King of Limbs, it stays in one mode rather than swerving all over the place. You might see that as running out of ideas. or you might see it as growing up. or you might see it however you like. I don’t think Radiohead cares much.

Discog-ology

Next: TBD

Previous: The King Of Limbs

Tracks I Liked

Burn The Witch - a great track with barely concealed dissonance in the strings

Identikit - a slyly groovy track with a great lyric (probably… if you could understand it)

Present Tense - a cogent and focused, if understated, blast