Radiohead In Rainbows
The most notable, striking feature of In Rainbows, may not simply be that Radiohead chose to release the album in a now well publicized and vaunted “pay what you choose” manner, but that this is the first album in a long span in the band’s career to be ultimately somewhat forgettable. They have raised the bar so high in the duration from The Bends through Hail to the Thief, that while In Rainbows is by no means a poor outing, it simply doesn’t reach any of the epic heights some are used to. At its best moments, some of the tracks are a wonderful, aural clusterfuck of a band who has evolved their sound in a stellar way, while still hearing fantastic elements of Kid A, Amnesiac, Ok Computer. Tracks like 15 Step, All I Need and Jigsaw Falling Into Place touch this vein and are the highlights of the album.
However Radiohead miss the mark on several other songs by an almost stripping down the tracks to bare bones, replaced only with sparse quasi-haunting minimalist vocals and undertones. It’s not as if the weaker moments necessarily feel rushed or under prepared, they just are not particularly memorable or interesting.
As it is, In Rainbows will probably be more written into stone as the great industry divider in the manner of its release, rather than Radiohead’s first merely ‘good’ album in over a decade.