Music Review: Hail to the Thief, Radiohead

Hail to the Thief takes you through a trip down the Radiohead timeline. It has been promised to be the exact opposite of previous albums, with rumours of return to guitar music, but instead it is a good mixture of hints to all previously played styles, as well as some possible future directions.

One thing which is obvious when first holding the album cover is the double names given to all the songs and to the album itself. After listening to the album a few times, I am still wondering about that. No matter what Radiohead might do, they always keep their audience thinking, and this is no exception.

The album is opened with “2+2=5″, a promised return to guitars in the best possible form. It hints as far as The Bends, or even Pablo Honey. “Sit down. Stand up.” Is following with multi-instruments and voice samples to remind us who we are listening to with a call back to the Kid A / Amnesiac days, but we immediately afterwards drawn back by Sail to the Moon’s soft harmonies.

All these pushes and pulls through past and present are complemented by Backdrifts and The Gloaming, a proof that the good lessons learned in the Kid A/Amnesiac period were not forgotten.

These are given a completely different direction by “We suck Young Blood”, a song from a completely different timeline. It gets the listener into a clapping trance that cannot be helped. Or at list that is the only explanation I could think of for the funny looks I got when I first listened to it on the bus. The Gloaming is the perfect way to be snapped back into reality.

Strong feelings are also expressed by “Myxomatosis” and “A Wolf at the Door” adding explosions of fear and frustration to any previous confusion that might already be stirring in the listener’s brains. “A Wolf at the Door” summarises everything with a fast pace of lyrics to a slow rhythm, just to calm things down.

If this is the end of Radiohead as we know it, I will be thrilled with the final notes and open up for change.

HTTT

A week late, I am finally a proud owner of a copy of Hail to the Thief!

Review coming up soon.

Showers

Showers are wonderful. A hot strong stream of water massaging the body from top to bottom, leaving you clean and fresh and ready to face another day.

Or at least that would have been the case if a shower worked!

And a shower would work if the bloody electrician who was supposed to come and fix the boiler would have bothered to show up!

I’ve just spent two hours out of the office in order to get home on the set time to meet the electrician, wait for him for an hour, and then drive back to work knowing that my shower would still not work when I get back.

It actually started a few weeks ago when I first lost my hot water to a short circuit. It took my landlady a few days until she bothered to contact the electrician who came over with her to check it out. The electrician knew exactly what the problem was, but his acrophobia kept him from climbing on the roof to check it out. This meant I had to wait another day for another electrician to repair the damage. Obviously he didn’t do a very good job, since a week later the short circuit hit again.

Good thing I still have a shower at Veggie Vampire’s or the gym to look forward to, but until my shower gets fixed, my useless landlady is going to get a serious piece of my mind!

The Matrix As It Should Have Been

If you don’t mind a bit of a download, go to Matrix-XP and download the movie! (The high quality is about 31MB but well worth it!)

I’ve had such a laugh and didn’t fall asleep even once.

Sleep Deprivation

Sebastian is really pushing it.

For two nights in a row he has decided that my only role in life is to play with him, and trying to explain to him that I have an early morning in front of me doesn’t seem to help.

During the first night Sebastian was enjoying a game with his new little mouse toy. He usually likes pushing it under furniture and then trying to get it out. That night the furniture was me. Believe me, getting a cat’s nails poking you in the middle of the night while trying to reach under you, is not a nice way to wake up. A few times I tried to just take the toy and throw it away, but Sebastian just thought we were playing Fetch and kept bringing it back and pushing it under me again. At the end I just took the toy mouse and threw it out the door, closing it behind a happy playing Sebastian. It was too late for my sleep, though.

The second night wasn’t much easier. I was already tired from the first, which didn’t stop Sebastian pushing his little head under my hands demanding to be petted, and then biting when he realised I am not responding. I think he finally got the hint when I started pushing him off the bed. Again, it was too late for me…

I know one fat cat who will have to sleep outside the door tonight!