It really hits you by the third track. Despite all the highfalutin technology used to record, promote, sell and download In Rainbows, this is Radiohead's most rapturous, touching, and human record since 1997's OK Computer. For the first time in 10 years, Thom Yorke's fragile, sleepy vocals are almost always front and centre, instead of buried under layers of twitchy electronics as on the group's previous three records -- Kid A, Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief.
As the intro of strings and chorus of "Oohs" gives way to sparse bass beats and eerie synths, you'll want to cry "Hallelujah" when Yorke's plaintive mewls kick in -- like a surprise visit from a long-lost friend. Of course, "Nude" was written 10 years ago -- around the same time as "Karma Police" and the rest of OK Computer -- but In Rainbows isn't a step backward. It's two giant leaps forward -- a gorgeous and refined mix of Radiohead's musical spectrum, coloured by lurching electronic beats, Phil Selway's jazzy percussion ("Bodysnatchers"), melancholy strings ("Faust ARP"), sweeping synths, Jonny Greenwood's rippling guitars ("Weird Fishes/Arpeggi"), and Yorke's mumbly madman rants reminiscent of The Fall's Mark E.
Smith. An overwhelming sense of helplessness is present in each and every one of the 10 tracks, accompanied by a few bursts of sophisticated temper tantrums. "Did the cat get your tongue?
Did your string come undone?" Yorke asks on "15 Step," a glitchy song with intermittent bursts of children's cheers. Yet for all Radiohead's tales of loneliness, confusion and alienation -- accentuated by Yorke's contrasting references to nature and technology -- In Rainbows feels ultimately warm and comforting.
After years of holding us at arm's length with their experimental albums, Yorke and his bandmates are reaching out their hands again, wanting to reconnect and help us through troubled times.
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