Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

I definitely get a soul-y vibe from The Numbers strings too, maybe like something from an Etta James song.

xpost look around for Andy Votel's "Histoire De Melody Vannier" mix. It's a great introduction to Vannier's expansive arranging work in the '60s and '70s. Amazing arabesque string arrangements on tons of French pop records.

Voila!

Dynamic range is about a lot more than just production and mastering and, with the exception of the occasional swell of the strings, these just aren't songs with a great deal of dynamics full stop. OK Computer is about as compressed a record as any in their catalogue and it has WAY more in the way of dynamics than AMSP, which mostly drifts along in a haze. That's definitely a conscious aesthetic decision by the band though.

There's definitely a sag in this in the second quarter - Desert Island Disk and Ful Stop don't hold my interest at all, but there are so many great harmonic and textural shifts in the arrangements on the second half. The run from Identikit through to Present Tense is my favourite section now.

yeah i don't think this album would work in the same way if it were full of loud and quiet bits. it's a sustained piece from beginning to end in that respect

whoa thanks Captain Jay Vee !

My pleasure!

My ranking:

Decks Dark
Daydreaming
Tinker Tailor...
Ful Stop
The Numbers
Burn the Witch
True Love Waits
Present Tense
Desert Island Disk
Identikit
Glass Eyes

i wonder why they haven't played Glass Eyes yet

Cos it's the worst one?

I like the instrumention, but the vox so mopey.

ARE so mopey.

I'm beginning to feel that, as good as this record is, I may have burned out on it already. Hmm.

it is endlessly replayable for me. i haven't been putting it on as much in the car or on headphones (although i keep noticing new little details when i do), but i'm always happy to put it on in the background.

It's developing into a "mood" record for me, which is strange because I can listen to stuff like Kid A in any mood.

I think it's because Glass Eyed is very reliant on the orchestral arrangements to work.

My friend phoned me late last night, almost frothing at the mouth about how good the Roundhouse gig was, anybody attend?

I was there last night. Loved how the band just seemed very comfortable with themselves now and the ease with which they'll just drop in a classic old song with the 'newer' (ie last 10 years)albums.

I dunno. find this to be their most beautiful record. The choir / treated vocal parts that crop up throughout , like in " Present Tense", floor me on each listen. Love the string arrangements, the guitar playing, the seamless (finally) integration of electronics ( something I felt always stuck out in an awkward way on most of the previous albums from "Kid A" on). Endlessly rewarding a whole lot of listens in.

Listened to an audience recording of a recent Paris gig and the stuff sounds great live, yeah.

I wonder how these new songs would fare in a new Radiohead artist poll. As far as I remember not a single King of Limbs song made the top 40 when we did it a couple of years ago.

"Daydreaming" would easily make my top ten now

Yeah I was underwhelmed first couple of times I heard it, but it's lovely. The vintage sounding synth that comes in about halfway through mirroring the piano is gorgeous.

"Daydreaming" top ten for me too

Hmm. I think this album is one of those albums that is greater than the sum of its parts and at this stage I find it hard to see it as a series of individual moments. I suppose 'Burn The Witch', 'Decks Dark', 'Ful Stop', 'Identikit' and 'The Numbers' would be my ballot contenders from this record, but truth be told, I'm not sure any of them would make it because I can think of 20 or more Radiohead tracks which are stronger in isolation for me.

My friend phoned me late last night, almost frothing at the mouth about how good the Roundhouse gig was, anybody attend?

assuming we don't have the same friend but i had the same experience

I caught myself skipping 'Burn The Witch' when I put this on last night. Uh-oh....
― TARANTINO! (dog latin), Friday, May 13, 2016

this time around I only skip Burn the Witch because I heard it way too obsessively before the album came out.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, May 13, 2016

'Daydreaming' is the one I skip now, still love 'Burn The Witch'

I kind of want to hear a Sting cover of Present Tense now.

probably should have bumped this thread instead:

http://www.avclub.com/article/radiohead-fans-attacked-listening-event-turkey-238425

this album was released today and has finally shown up on Spotify. i will finally get to hear it, so excited.

Me too. Listened to it today, very mellow, I like more than TKOL, but it's going to take a while for these tracks to sink in.

What a bunch of assholes.

Referring to the extremist ramadan dickheads not the band or any of youse.

This has quietly turned into one of my favorite albums of the year, and I'm not a huge Radiohead fan per se. It also (and this is probably going to sound like a very backhanded compliment) reminds me a lot of Blur's 13, minus the louder tracks, and with much more restraint on all fronts. I'm not sure if a "Bugman" would have helped or hurt, but it means you don't have to adjust the volume when it's on in the background. Desert Island Disk was actually the first track where my ears really perked up (I already knew the opener via the single).

I'm grateful that this record was better than TKOL and it made me revisit the Radiohead records I listened to thousands of times then neglected for many years. Such a trip to come back after ~9 years to a band that you listened to obsessively for ~3 years. "There There," "Kid A," "Scatterbrain," "You and Whose Army" are just staggering (obviously). Anyway this album looks bad in light of the past. But I need to spend more time with it.

feel like dlp9001 -- this record sort of gains strength over a few listens and feels very strong, even though I sort of considered myself check out on caring about Radiohead. the playing is good, the sort of tonal through-line is complex and rewards close listening, the harder I dig in the more I find.

i'm with you guys, this is a grower and will reward deep listening. feels like it has a tension that their last few records have lacked.

it's funny to me that this is the first radiohead album where i've heard some of their descendents as much as their forebears--there's some mid-period shearwater in this, some of the liars records come up too as i listen.

agreed. "tinker tailor..." sounds like a Broadcast song to me.

I haven't listened to this for a while, not because I've overplayed it or burned out on it or anything, more that it's not the kind of record that chimes with my overall mood at the moment. Radiohead and tropical weather don't really mix well.

I've been listening to Spectre all over again in the context of this album and I think it's amazing. The vocal melody he makes when singing "My hunger burns a bullet hole a spectre of my mortal soul / The only truth that I can see
Is when you put your lips to these" keeps getting stuck in my head (just realized I kept mishearing the first line as 'My hungry bird" which made no sense). Even the lesser guitar and piano covers I've heard on youtube make you realize how great of a melody it is. Only thing ruining this song from being the best thing they've released in years is the awkward drumming and the reverb overload on the voice (I also blame those as the factor that ultimately won the bond theme to Sam Smith which is a shame... I'd love to have seen people that don't follow them remembering them from a song other than Creep)

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, May 13, 2016 4:32 AM (1 month ago)

I've had Spectre on regular rotation since it came out -- awesome track, and a huge black eye for the Broccoli's for not making it the theme song in the 007 movie of the same name. Thing is, it lyric is perfectly matched to content of the film - FAR superior than the pablum they used from Sam Smith.

Radiohead: A Moon Shaped POLL

So, I'm listening to A Moon Shaped Pool for the first time in weeks and I guess my initial responses to this record have turned out to be little more than a bunch of red herrings. Upon first listen, this album did sound quite beautiful in places and seemed to have the potential to grow even more to become one of their more satisfying works, but listening to it now it seems that the criticisms I've heard and read about this album being meandering, mostly turgid and a little on the bland and boring side are actually, sadly, completely and totally OTM.

Now, Radiohead fans being the kind of special breed that they are, would have you believe that this record is a deep, rich and intense emotional experience lovingly delivered by "the most forward-thinking band in popular music(tm)" but, truth be told, it isn't. Firstly, this must be one of the least "forward-thinking" releases in Radiohead's catalogue - which isn't a bad thing in itself, but what it does mean is that, in the absence of much fancy window dressing/sonics, the listener focuses upon the quality of the songwriting, and a lot of the compositions meander and aren't particularly melodically interesting. Radiohead have got around this problem in the past by dressing up songs that are barely there with sonically interesting arrangements. Here, the sound is mostly monochrome and a touch on the bland side - and the string arrangements, as just about competent as they are, aren't enough to carry a lot of these songs. Also, 'True Love Waits' had a hell of a lot of potential, and it was hard to imagine them fucking it up - except that's precisely what they did. A beautiful song turned into a whiny, dull mess.

One of the main criticisms of Radiohead's output over the years is that they're depressing, a criticism that I don't quite agree with and never have really agreed with. However, what is depressing is that Radiohead, this time around, have delivered their equivalent of an adult contemporary record, a la Coldplay or David Gray - albeit one that is distinguished by Thom Yorke's melodic sense and compositions that avoid the traditional verse-chorus-verse-chorus-mid 8-chorus structure - and hardly anyone has seemed to notice this. The songs mostly operate in the mid-tempo range and plod and meander from beginning to end and Thom Yorke does his high pitched "ooooooohs" a lot like we haven't heard it all a million fucking times before. Nigel Godrich's production too, gives the whole album that "once-aurally-exciting-16-years-ago-but-now-is-actually-quite-fucking-boring-learn-some-new-tricks-goddamn-it-you-cunt" Godrich sheen that makes everything sound so flat and samey. The sound of a band with dick-all left to say and not particularly arsed about finding something to say, knowing that idiots will lap whatever they do up anyway.

Highlights: Burn The Witch, Decks Dark, Ful Stop, Identikit, The Numbers.
Destroy everything else, and search for the live version of 'True Love Waits' on I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings.

thought this was OK, tho much prefer the new leak

Agree to disagree Turrican.

Agree to disagree as well. Holds up for me still and is the first Radiohead album in years I've stuck with past the initial excitement.

I've stuck with past the initial excitement because it's a beautiful piece of work.

it's absolutely an adult contemporary record, or "sophisti-pop", or whatever. nobody fucking needs fifty-something revolutionaries. it's certainly reasonable to think that the strength of the compositions and arrangements isn't enough to overcome the mid-tempo lope of all the songs (mid-tempo lope is exactly my problem with the sex pistols). personally i'm irritated that radiohead is still mastering their albums for jogging or top 40 rotation, which means i have a difficult time listening to it straight through.

however, the songs are still better than whatever that "lotus blossom" stuff they were doing for their last album was. i'd put them on a par with, say, "hail to the thief". radiohead aren't bowie, they can't reinvent themselves with every album, but they've done a good job of consolidating their sound.

Well, I don't think particularly highly of The King of Limbs either, which has always struck me as being mostly a collection of underwritten songs at their core - although I'll concede that 'Codex' is better than pretty much anything on A Moon Shaped Pool.

On the whole, though, for at least the last 9 years or so, the gulf between the actual quality of Radiohead's music and what the hardcore fans say it is could not be more apparent.

the hardcore fans, sure, but once i got off the bus i started liking their music a lot more.