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First Impressions thread


pennyroyalty

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regarding mr magpie

 

 

 

turns out i was right but for pretty different reasons than i was imagining.

 

and i predicted that the ending of the original song would make for a great can-style buildup, which they kinda did, only it doesn't really build up to any sort of climax. so yeah im kind of going out on a limb i s u p p o s e

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my computer decided it was a good time to crash just before i was about to dl TKOL... i dont even know how i'm posting this right now.

 

I just have to say, I love this album! someone said it picks up where amnesiac left off..i had the same imagery in my head first listen...amnesiac is my favorite album

 

this is what i was hoping for in in rainbows

 

it was worth the wait...

 

Lotus Flower>Bloom>Little by Little>Feral>Codex>Give Up the Ghost> Morning Mr Magpie> Separator

 

I didn't like wake me before and I don't like it here either (sounds like it belongs on IR)...other than that I love this album!

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My first impression - Will there be a version with full band?

 

My second impression - They might want to consider if writing and recording new songs is a good use of their time nowadays if it took them over 3 full years to come up with this. They could just focus on family and play existing material at a few festivals every year.

 

Never look back.

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those fucking horns on codex, have RH ever sounded better? godammm

 

Precisely!!! Just stuns me, freezes me in place....even though Codex is a Pyramid Song ripoff/advancement imho. I don't care.

 

You and others have mentioned bass/Colin....for the first time in years I had to turn the bass setting down in order to hear an album! Fuckin car/house shook each time I played TKOL before this adjustment. :lol:

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They are too subtle IMO. I barely notice them! Maybe it's just my speakers?

 

Maybe that is the point though...so subtle. None of this "look how fucking clever we are" a la KidAmnesiac. It's all so....subtle, this album. Nobody is trying really hard for the climax, big vocal, big layers, songs that go up to 11, etc etc....and THAT is the greatest thing about this album. It just flows out, Man. Understatement! So powerful.

 

Yes I'm tired.

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Although Give up the Ghost is just lame (backing vocals in particular).

 

 

What? That song, with those swaying/descending background vocals is one of the most incredible musical discoveries/experiences I have ever had. The lyrics are so beautiful too, and Thom's singing.... Fuck....to each their own I suppose.

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First impressions (and I've been keeping to myself for days, and not reading reviews etc), I'm still in head-spinning mode. There is some wonderful music on there (Lotus Flower is just glorious, and there are at least 4 others of similar quality), but I think what is disorientating me is the beginning and end tracks, Bloom and Separator - they are simply so unlike any beginning/end songs on a RH record previously. They make the record into a mood piece, with Bloom and Separator setting (and finishing off with) that mood. Almost the best clue I've seen so far is the video of Thom dirty dancing (and bad lip-synching) to Lotus Flower, lost deep in the groove. That seems to be how I'm meant to react. And I like those beats and grooves. But I still feel at arm's length from the album.

 

By the way, I'm finding that I can only really listen to it on headphones - my first couple of listens were through (very good) speakers, but I could immediately see I was missing too much. It's very dense music. And very challenging at the moment.

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RADIOHEAD

 

:lol:

 

Finally got a little time to write more detailed first impressions...

Yes it is short. It is also so dense that I'd be lost with more than eight tracks. After the first listen, I had my jaw dragging the floor. It's interesting how they use the usual pop format in some of the songs (body/chorus/body/chorus/bridge/chorus, or some close variation of this), but manage to not fall into the trap of making anything straightforward, lol.

Bloom blew my mind, yeah acid/electronic/fusion jazz I guess. Morning Mr. Magpie and Little by Little didn't appeal to me on the absolutely first listen but did on the second/third; Morning Mr. Pie sounds very TAMTW style and Little by Little sounded a bit too meh at first, then I cleaned my ears. I'm still digesting Feral, but in a good sense... I am in love with it.

Lotus Flower seems the sensible choice as a promo single, given the fact that they put it out with a video that went fucking viral. I'm absolutely in love with how they worked the song, and very happy to not see it as a sappy Neil Young guitar song. The video... I think Thom is taking the piss, and having the time of his life while doing so.

Codex and GIve Up The Ghost seem almost like attempts to bring us down from the adrenaline buildup given by the rest of the album. Also really happy how GUTG was hardly changed from the live version, the song was absolute perfection already.

Separator is a great closer, because it doesn't feel like a closer... leaves me on the edge of my seat, and makes me go and press play again.

 

People complaining that there are no guitars in this album need to clean their ears.

Fabulous layering. There is so much going in there. Tidbits of "white noise" here and there. Did Jonny put away the ondes on this record? Hard to know sometimes what they used. There was a lot of cutting and pasting... sewing pieces together... remember how DAS looked some months ago? Heh.

 

10/10 drumming and bass work.

Thom's voice is top notch, up front in some songs, and well blended/reverbed/used as an instrument in others.

 

Is this groundbreaking? Perhaps not. But for some listens I tried to forget it was Radiohead doing this, and then waking up to the fact that it was... I've been smiling the whole weekend. Love how they thwarted all predictions. But we should have known this by now...

I'm in love.

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What? That song, with those swaying/descending background vocals is one of the most incredible musical discoveries/experiences I have ever had. The lyrics are so beautiful too, and Thom's singing.... Fuck....to each their own I suppose.

The moment where he sings the title lyric is pretty great, probably one of the best moments on the album. Besides that it's fairly pleasant but those backing vocals just make the whole thing seem so silly and sentimental

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Listened to the whole thing again yesterday evening, and I am still not thrilled. I still cannot shake the impression that this album is definitely not "too much" something (not too out there, not too extravagant, not too different from previous RH albums). It's just "not enough". Very well produced, rich in rhythms and cool bass lines, but with the kind of lyrics and melodies you could find elsewhere (which was never the case for Radiohead). Codex is cool but it sounds like a Peter Gabriel ballad (not that it's a bad thing, I just did not need to wait years for a Radiohead album to listen to something like it). Separator has only one interesting melody line, towards the end. Morning Mr Magpie has always been quite unexciting, and while its album arrangement is inventive, it does not redeem the song for me. Bloom and Feral are interesting, Lotus Flower is perfect, Little by little is OK (although its chorus is really nothing special), but I miss the times when I used to love every second of a RH album (well, sometimes I get bored halfway through House of Cards but that's another story).

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I'm rationing myself to one listen per day so I'm only on #4 now.

 

In Rainbows spoke to me, and in my heart, I knew everything it was saying. The King of Limbs also speaks to me, but I've got no fucking clue what it's saying.

 

Seriously, its in some House of Cards/Bangers and Mash bastard tongue and the lack of obvious climaxes is a mindfuck, but I'm guessing when it clicks, this is going to be one epic aural orgasm. I suspect it revolves around the lotus/moon on a stick part of Lotus Flower...

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