On A Mission

Katy B - On A Mission
released 4 April 2011 on Sony

Sometimes it can be hard to keep up with all the musical genres and sub-categories that are knocking around. For those of you who like your music ordered neatly, Kathleen Brien – better known as Katy B – fits into the box labelled “UK funky.” If you don’t know what UK funky is, you could always ask Katy herself, as she wrote an essay on the subject while studying for a degree in popular music. I’m no expert myself, but presumably it’s different to US funky, which I imagine to primarily consist of Bootsy Collins, George Clinton and Nile Rodgers jamming non-stop for three days aboard a spaceship made entirely of hallucinations.

Anyway, Katy B is a very different proposition; she’s been providing guest vocals for underground tracks since the age of sixteen and has been heavily supported by former pirate station, Rinse FM. She gate-crashed the UK Top 5 late last year with her calling card, Katy On A Mission, and there’s been no stopping her since.

 

On A Mission is the sound of the dancefloor being brought to the pop charts. In fact, it could even be labelled a concept album in the loosest possible sense, as it has a theme running through it of a big night out. Stylistically, there are plenty of nods to dance music trends of the last twenty years, most notably the breakbeat of the 1990s and the formerly ubiquitous sound of UK garage from the early 21st Century. Thankfully, Katy B brings more to the table than the irritating two-step beat that was unavoidable a decade or so ago. Credit must go to the production team behind On A Mission, as it is they (Geeneus, Benga, Zinc, Artwork and Skream) who elevate the album from merely “good” to “great.”

 

Opener Power On Me isn’t anything to write home about, but the album really bursts into life with aforementioned single, Katy On A Mission. It’s a song that expertly captures the thrilling moment when you enter a club and the sheer force of the music completely envelops you. Katy B’s clipped, English tones (listen as she sings, “I try to push past but he wants to play”) contrast perfectly with the bass-heavy, dubby production of Benga. On A Mission deftly mines non-commercial genres and repackages them for crossover success; there’s a very strong pop, radio-friendly vibe running through the record, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for experimentation and fresh ideas. The marvellously-titled Witches Brew throws oscillating bleeps around with some huge bass and Magnetic Man collaboration Perfect Stranger is uncompromising dubstep.

 

From Katy On A Mission’s start-of-the-night feel, we move to unwanted attention and rubbish potential hook-ups (Why You Always Here and the effortless Movement) all the way through to the closing of the club, Lights On, which features Mercury winning Ms. Dynamite. It’s a joyous track about not wanting the night to end, and the wish to keep dancing once the club lights come up. Seeing as the UK hasn’t had a decent female urban star since Ms. Dynamite’s halcyon days, this song could also be viewed as a symbolic passing of the baton.

 

We’ll neatly sidestep the insipid Easy Please Me with its terrible opening line of “Standing at the bar with my friend, Olivia,” and conveniently move onto final track, Hard To Get. We’ve gone out, had a drink and a dance, made it to closing time, survived the night bus, and Hard To Get is the post-club comedown. It’s languid and sexy funk, with horn stabs and sultry vocals, and an ideal way to end both an evening and the album. As if to let you know we’re at the end, Katy B does her album “thankyous” towards the end of the song, finally thanking the listener for “joining me on my mission.” She then puts on an endearingly silly voice, and collapses into laughter. It may seem an insignificant moment, but it shows Katy B’s one of us. She might be a star now, but she’s just the girl next door who lives to go out and have a good time. What could have been an unspectacular let-down of an album has become a triumphant pop masterclass that’s likely to soundtrack many a good time this year.

 

On A Mission has plenty for the charts, plenty for the dancefloors and plenty for people who take their music a bit more seriously. Katy B could be loved by everyone and she probably deserves to be; after all, she’s just made the pop record of 2011.

A Me B (interview)

Like many 18 year old girls, Amy Burns wants to be a successful solo artist. However, what sets her apart from vast swathes of the population is that she isn’t trying to achieve her dreams by turning up to reality show auditions and assuming that “passion” and the fact it “means the world” is all it takes. Making the most of the opportunities the internet affords new talent, she’s doing things on her own terms. Not only a singer and rapper, she also produces all her own tracks.

So far, so good – you have to admire her industry. But not only that, Amy Burns (a.k.a. A Me B) makes utterly fantastic music. When not studying at college, she creates songs that touch on the cornerstones of pop, hip-hop, dubstep, dance and electronica. She’s just released a frighteningly accomplished mixtape called Get Me Out This Box, which is available for free on her website. A debut full-length album is set to follow later this year, but before she launches her assault on the world of music, she found time to have a chat over Skype.

“When I was 12, I remember playing a PlayStation 2 game called EJay Clubworld, which was just basically arranging loops. From then on, I really liked making music that way, and that’s how I got into producing.” It’s incredibly refreshing to hear someone so young talk about their love for the creation side of music, rather than just the vocals. Amy is exceptionally assured and confident, but without any hint of arrogance. She’s also remarkably patient too – Skype connectivity issues meant that our conversation was split into three parts. While she laughed off this inconvenience, I was panicking and apologising profusely.

One of the more striking things about Get Me Out This Box is the fluidity of the lyrics. A Me B makes ordinary life and everyday dramas compelling, and this could be as a result of her writing every day. “I write when I’m on a train, or people-watching, or on the college bus even. Sometimes, lyrics just come depending on what mood you’re in.” The title track is a fantastic duel tale, with A Me B concerned about having her music labelled while simultaneously being stuck within a stifling relationship. “I don’t want to be pigeonholed, so it’s showing how I can use my voice both singing and rapping over different beats.”

Music critics are too quick to try and categorise artists, and it seems I’m no different. After asking how she got into making hip-hop, A Me B replied by telling me her music isn’t straight-up hip-hop. After pushing for an answer on how she’d describe the music she makes, I got the response of “urban dance.” It’s probably a better description than any established genre name you’d care to throw at A Me B – the range of influences don’t lend themselves to one particular type of music. Her mixtape even samples both The xx and Ian Brown.

So, just how close is A Me B to mainstream success? Chances are you haven’t heard of her yet, but she’s signed to an indie label (Manchester’s Affinity Records), has a tour coming up and has already supported the hugely successful Tinchy Stryder. “It was amazing!” she exclaims excitedly. “It was at the O2 Academy in Liverpool and two years before, I’d watched Dizzee Rascal there. Then, I was performing on that same stage; it was just mad. When I went on stage, some girls who must have seen me before started singing one of my songs, and that boosted me right up. It’s one of the best gigs I’ve done so far; when I was getting the crowd involved with call and response they were giving it back. It was just great!”

In the last decade, any female UK rappers who have broken through have tended to be from London, but A Me B hails from Wigan in Lancashire. Thus, she sings and raps with a disarming broad northern brogue, which makes you realise how little of this kind of sound you hear in music. Also, the female rappers who have broken through have seemed to fade away all too quickly. Ms. Dynamite, Speech Debelle and Lady Sovereign have all failed to live up to their initial promise. I wondered if A Me B had a theory on why this may be, but my enquiries were met with a defence of the artists in question. “To be fair to Ms. Dynamite, she’s just come back,” she correctly pointed out. “She’s just done a track with Katy B [Lights On] which has done well.” Now that’s solidarity.

Completely self-taught, bright, ambitious and a pleasure to interview, the music industry needs more people like A Me B. She promises her forthcoming album will be “not like a lot of commercial music that’s out there at the moment” and is savvy enough to realise “you’ve got to be a bit different if you want to stand out.” If the album fulfils the promise shown on Get Me Out This Box, we could well be witnessing the making of a star.

A Me B’s mixtape, Get Me Out This Box, is available for free download now at www.ameb.co.uk.

F.A.M.E.

Chris Brown - F.A.M.E.
released 21 March 2011 on RCA

If you’d been charged with felony assault resulting in five years’ probation and a course of domestic violence counselling, there’s a good chance you’d find yourself out of a job. At the very least, your career would be likely to suffer. What you wouldn’t expect is that you’d return to your place of work to find some of the biggest and best names in your industry willing to work with you. This is because you aren’t Chris Brown. Yes, despite Brown’s convictions, there are a host of guest stars and collaborators on new album, F.A.M.E. It’s true what they say; there really is no business like showbusiness.

At this point, you may be wondering what this article’s about, and thinking that you came here to read a review of the new Chris Brown record, rather than a character assassination. However, past events are pertinent to F.A.M.E., and that’s apparent from the opening track, Deuces. Deuces is a statement of defiance aimed at a former paramour (widely accepted to be a certain Bajan recording artist) that paints Brown as the innocent victim of the relationship. He sings about how his ex was, “waiting for me to fuck up,” and how “you’ll regret the day when I find another girl,” who “knows just what I mean when I tell her keep it drama-free.” This is genuinely astonishing stuff and how Brown can be so tactless defies belief. Over mid-tempo, insubstantial R&B, guests Tyga and Kevin McCall get in on the act, informing us “thought it was true love, but you know women lie,” and “it finally hit me, like Tina did Ike in the limo.”

 

When taken out of context in a review, lyrics can often be bent towards the will of the writer, but these are pretty stark in meaning. There’s an uncomfortable feeling of Brown trying to coerce you, to convince you that his actions can be excused, and that he’s not sorry for what he did, only sorry he got caught. You might think he’d want to keep his head down and not mention past transgressions, but clearly that isn’t the case. Since being usurped by Bruno Mars, F.A.M.E. is Brown’s attempt at relaunching himself as a kind of “ladies’ man thug” a la Tupac.

 

The rest of F.A.M.E. – it stands for “Fans Are My Everything,” or, showing a staggering lack of foresight, “Fighting All My Enemies” – is little better. Worst of all are the sex-fixated slow jams, which display some of the least alluring imagery seen outside of a morgue. On No Bullshit, the noted violent misogynist boasts,“I’m gonna leave it in when we do it” in a heavily auto-tuned voice over a clichéd backing track.

 

In years gone by when censorship was rife, artists had to be imaginative and euphemistic when making allusions to sex. However, this is clearly now not the case and Brown has taken this as carte blanche to be very literal, removing any semblance of mystery and intrigue. The result is something about as enticing and erotic as a two hour documentary on the history of teapots. The nadir of F.A.M.E. – and perhaps of all recorded music in history – is the charmingly titled, Wet The Bed, featuring well-known campaigner for women’s rights, Ludacris. Brown and Ludacris are extremely confident of their sexual prowess, and this pleasant ditty lets us all know how they intend to please a lady so well, that she will – and let’s not mince our words here – experience multiple orgasms. As Brown coos, “put your legs behind your head, I’m gonna make you wet the bed” (no, seriously, he actually says that), you’ll probably start to feel nauseous. By the time Ludacris’s ridiculous boasts have begun – notably, “they call me the super soaker,” and “you about to get baptised, baby” – there's a good chance you'll be genuinely ill.

 

There is one genuinely hilarious track on F.A.M.E. though, when cowardly felon Brown teams up with Busta Rhymes and Lil Wayne for Look At Me Now. Over a bed that sounds like The Clangers having a party with too much jelly, Brown attempts to rap. He then becomes fixated on his own penis (“since we talkin’ about my dick, all of you haters say hi to it”) before deciding he’s fed up of hip-hop and grinding to a halt. Then, Busta Rhymes criticises Brown’s flow, tells him he’s not good enough, and shows him how it should be done. It’s an odd situation, where an artist not exactly short of bravado is put down so comprehensively in his own record. When this happens, you might like to do what I do, and let out a barely audible, but still significant, cheer.

 

The music itself is depressingly by-numbers R&B with few (read: no) redeeming features. Justin Bieber crops up on one track (nice decision by your management there, Bieber), making the listener lose the will to live. Even the almost-listenable tracks (Up 2 You, Yeah 3x) have all been done before, and done a lot better too. By the time this album finishes, sticking knitting needles through your eardrums seems like a decent proposition.

 

F.A.M.E. is a vile, despicable album that doesn’t deserve to be supported in any way, shape or form. Its very existence is a frightening indictment of our times, in terms of our attitudes to music, women and the cult of celebrity. If, in 2011, you’re wondering why feminism still exists, this record could go some way towards explaining why it’s still necessary. Please, please do not buy this album. If you do, you are likely to hear a loud creaking sound; that will be either your family opening the door and leaving the room, or Emmeline Pankhurst turning in her grave.

We're New Here

Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx - We're New Here
released 21 February 2011 on XL

Before having heard it, I was glad Gil Scott-Heron’s 2010 album, I’m New Here, existed. It’s a compelling story: 1970s counter-cultural icon overcomes personal strife to return, older and much wiser, and make a modern and exciting record. Verdict: anticipation matched by result. Hooray.

Similarly, before having heard We’re New Here, Scott-Heron’s “collaboration” of sorts with Jamie Smith of London upstarts The xx, I was glad it existed too. Again, another great story: stellar comeback album remixed by one of the rising stars of UK music in an intriguing marriage of opposites. Verdict: well, it’s good, but it’s no I’m New Here.

 

Smith’s certainly had an interesting idea with this album. Scott-Heron’s not been involved with the musical side of things, Smith taking his vocal tracks from I’m New Here and creating something entirely new and different. Whereas Scott-Heron primarily trades in gritty, grizzled soul, Smith is a dance producer, and Scott-Heron’s voice gives Smith’s creations a certain gravitas.

 

Despite Smith’s tender years, he’s clearly heavily influenced by the early 90s UK dance scene he’s barely old enough to remember. Running utilises old-school hip-hop beats and The Crutch sounds like something from the early days of trance or breakbeat. This, plus the numerous interludes and snatches of spoken-word performance from Scott-Heron, give We’re New Here the feeling of a mixtape or DJ set, rather than a traditional album.

 

If you’re thinking it’s a touch on the bizarre side to make a Gil Scott-Heron dance record, you’re right, it is, and occasionally the limitations of the concept are exposed. Smith is working within fairly fixed parameters, and on some tracks, Home and Ur Soul And Mine are notable examples, the approach falls flat. On these songs, Scott-Heron’s vocals add nothing and it’s surely only to keep consistency that they’re included at all.

 

But when Smith gets it right, it really works and – potentially controversial statement alert – some tracks are superior to the songs they’re based on. My Cloud has become a lurching, druggy, blissed-out reverie with Scott-Heron as some kind of hippie sage. NY Is Killing Me (yes, the “modernising” of track names is totally unnecessary) is probably the heaviest and most unrecognisable song on show, with its siren-like riff, techno bleeps and unremitting jungle beats – it’s completely immersive and cathartic, though. Even the interludes have been reworked, with background chatter, skittering percussion and jazz chords.

 

No review of We’re New Here would be complete, however, without a few words about the album’s best track; one that is equal parts gorgeous, heartfelt and addictive. I’ll Take Care Of You was arguably the highlight of I’m New Here and Smith’s reimagining, I’ll Take Care Of U, is irresistible. Smith takes the piano chords of the original and, by adding an earworm of a melody, turns it into something that sounds like the very best of Chicago house. I don’t usually recommend listening to individual album tracks out of context, but since this isn’t a normal record, an exception can be made. If you only download and/or listen to one track from We’re New Here, make it this one.

 

While it may not attain the dizzy heights of I’m New Here, Smith’s deftness ensures that We’re New Here is far more than just a vanity project. On occasion, he’s penned in by his own restrictions, but there’s enough here to suggest he’s got a real future in production. Who’d have thought it? A member of Britain’s best new band of the last couple of years is also potentially the best remixer and producer too. Not fair, is it?

Anyone Who Had a Chart

Watching Top Of The Pops was a big part of my life; it was the first television programme I was allowed to “stay up” to watch, and I would sit attentively for half an hour, enraptured. I loved finding out what songs had gone up, what had gone down, and best of all, spotting the new entries in the chart.

As I grew older and my interest in chart music waned, the Top 40 became less important. Then, in 2006, Top Of The Pops was cancelled, and since then I’ve hardly been aware of what was at the summit of the charts.

So, this week, I decided to listen to the Official Charts in their entirety, on Radio 1. Three hours later, I was exhausted and suffering from pop music overload, but what had I learnt? I’d discovered that a young man named Bruno Mars would go to such lengths for his beloved that he makes Meat Loaf look uncommitted; I’d found out that twelve years after his chart debut, Eminem was still unfeasibly angry about something or other; and I’d realised that a bright young thing called Jessie J has a fairly loose grip on the difference between the genders.

Recently chart music was described as “variations on the same shade of beige” but that’s not really the case. While there were similarities between many of the tracks, to call them “beige” would be to suggest they were insignificant and content to blend into the background.

That couldn’t be further from the truth; most songs demanded attention from the moment they began. Every possible space was filled with sound, leaving the songs strangled of any semblance of character; instead conjuring a relentless assault.

Music is so ubiquitous nowadays; you want to make yourself heard, and heard now. Today, music is often heard through MP3 players and faces tough competition from outside noise: traffic, and the general hubbub of daily life so it’s no surprise that the average chart entry displays all the subtlety of a seaside kiss-me-quick hat.
The leading example in this week’s crop appears to be Jessie J, whose debut hit, ‘Do It Like A Dude’ displays an approach to production that is akin to banging your head against a wall; repeatedly.

The singles market has actually experienced a renaissance in recent years, largely thanks to the advent of online music stores, like iTunes and in 2007, with eligibility rules relaxed, songs could enter the charts based on downloads alone, regardless of whether they’d ever been officially released as a single.

However, there will always be loopholes, and the latest to benefit is the mysterious American rap troupe ‘Hype Squad’ who have capitalised upon the buzz surrounding the as-yet-unavailable Wiz Khalifa track, “Black and Yellow”, and rush-released their own version (which sounds strangely similar to the original). Those who pine for the Wiz Khalifa version can’t wait, apparently, it for its UK release so Hype Squad’s ingenuity has given them a Top 40 hit.

Frighteningly, the average age of artists making up the Top 10 this week is less than 22, with the aforementioned Hawaiian, Bruno Mars, representing the old-timers, clocking in at a not-exactly-decrepit 25.

The lack of what we’d probably call traditional bands is striking It’s no secret that dance and R&B are the sound of the 21st Century generation, but there are only two acts, Foo Fighters and Noah & The Whale, who have a classic pop/rock line-up consisting of a guitarist and a drummer.

Does all of this mean it’s time to denounce chart music and claim things were better ‘back in the day’? Well it’s true that the trend of (perceived) “maximum impact” production is a little unsettling, but there is always room for invention and experimentation in pop music.

It may not be to everyone’s taste, but the exhilarating dubstep of Breakage shows promise, and the collaboration between Tiesto, Diplo and Busta Rhymes is oddly thrilling. For anyone wishing to write off the class of 2011, it’s worth bearing in mind that the current number one is Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’, a timeless piano-led ballad fit to top the charts of any era.

Of course, looking at the charts of one week in isolation doesn’t provide a watertight conclusion. It’s a snapshot.

The charts of 2011 are brash, an indictment of our obsession with celebrities, and display a severe shortage of guitars, yet the Official UK Top Forty still provides surprises and a few traces of gold amongst the silt.

Sunday at 4.00pm on Radio One – bring your own sieve.

Valhalla Dancehall

British Sea Power - Valhalla Dancehall
released 10 January 2011 on Rough Trade


British Sea Power have always been a better band in theory than in practice. On paper, they should be adored - they put geology and nature references in their lyrics, they often decorate the stage with assorted foliage, and they self-effacingly titled their debut The Decline of British Sea Power. However, giving their records a spin is often a disappointment as they reveal themselves as little more than a competent but pedestrian rock band. At this point, it would be fantastic to proclaim that Valhalla Dancehall is a triumph, a breakthrough, the album that would finally win over the doubters. Sadly, that’s not the case, and this record is just more of the same.

The attitude running through Valhalla Dancehall is an intriguing one: the aforementioned allusions to nature (“there are interstellar clouds on the Sussex Downs”), the dedication to creating huge, anthemic tunes, and the resolute Englishness that pervades the entire album (“I’m a big fan of the local library”). It’s a towering rock behemoth, make no mistake; it’s just a bit hard not to feel jaded by it all.

It starts off so well. First track, Who’s In Control, fair roars out of the traps. As album openers go, it’s a bold mission statement as lead singer Yan wishes “protesting was sexy on a Saturday night” against a wall of electric guitar and rumbling bass. The chorus chants of “over here, over there, over here, every-fucking-where” are just waiting for a hands-aloft crowd singalong.

From there, it’s almost uniformly downhill. The tracks fall into two categories: one-dimensional, reverb-heavy songs that try and fail to replicate the winning formula of Who’s In Control, and trite, over-long ballads, where Yan’s reedy vocals sound strained. The main exception is the stellar Living Is So Easy, which contains both the features Valhalla Dancehall otherwise sadly lacks: melody and restraint. If said subtlety was evident in more of the record it could have been a good deal more substantial, but as it stands, in spite of the band’s evident acumen, it’s a plodding, unremarkable effort.

So. Same as it ever was. British Sea Power: the band you want to like but who don’t do themselves any favours. Valhalla Dancehall will quickly disappear from your radar and there’s a chance that in two or three years, we get to do it all again. Let’s hope they confound expectations for the better next time.

The King Of Limbs

Radiohead - The King of Limbs
self-released on Friday 18th February
I wrote two reviews for this record. One for The Rocking Vicar and one for No Ripcord. Both are posted below:


ROCKING VICAR
Whether you’re a fan of Radiohead or not, you have to admit they’re no slouches when it comes to marketing. Already known for pioneering the “honesty box” payment method with 'In Rainbows' in 2007, they’ve got everyone in a tizzy again with 'The King Of Limbs'. As if an out-of-the-blue announcement of an album release in just five days time wasn’t enough, they then brought the date forward by 24 hours with no warning.


On the day itself, bloggers and web journalists tripped over themselves - and each other - in an attempt to be the first to review the record, but now the dust has settled, The King Of Limbs can be seen in context, divorced from the brouhaha surrounding its release. What we’re left with is an album which is striking on first listen, promises a great deal, but ultimately fails to deliver.


The King Of Limbs is very much an album of two sides. The first five tracks display a more prominent dance influence than any of their previous work, while the last three (yes, there are only eight songs) are more sedate and genteel, as if the band have exhausted their capacity for intensity.


The “dance” side is propelled by twitchy, off-kilter rhythms and wandering basslines, but it’s too often a case of style over substance. Opening track, 'Bloom', is unsettling enough to hold the listener’s attention with its bursts of white noise and backward looping effects, but subsequent numbers are too similar. Feral is the worst offender - an urgent, breathless song with a soupçon of dubstep that sounds like a work in progress. Chord stabs are barely there, hints of melody are snatched at and the threat that something interesting might happen is never realised.


Whether you’re a fan of Radiohead or not, you have to admit they’re no slouches when it comes to marketing. Already known for pioneering the “honesty box” payment method with 'In Rainbows' in 2007, they’ve got everyone in a tizzy again with 'The King Of Limbs'. As if an out-of-the-blue announcement of an album release in just five days time wasn’t enough, they then brought the date forward by 24 hours with no warning.


On the day itself, bloggers and web journalists tripped over themselves - and each other - in an attempt to be the first to review the record, but now the dust has settled, The King Of Limbs can be seen in context, divorced from the brouhaha surrounding its release. What we’re left with is an album which is striking on first listen, promises a great deal, but ultimately fails to deliver.


The King Of Limbs is very much an album of two sides. The first five tracks display a more prominent dance influence than any of their previous work, while the last three (yes, there are only eight songs) are more sedate and genteel, as if the band have exhausted their capacity for intensity.


The “dance” side is propelled by twitchy, off-kilter rhythms and wandering basslines, but it’s too often a case of style over substance. Opening track, 'Bloom', is unsettling enough to hold the listener’s attention with its bursts of white noise and backward looping effects, but subsequent numbers are too similar. Feral is the worst offender - an urgent, breathless song with a soupçon of dubstep that sounds like a work in progress. Chord stabs are barely there, hints of melody are snatched at and the threat that something interesting might happen is never realised.


NO RIPCORD


Announcing a new album on a Monday, setting the release date to Saturday and then bringing it forward to Friday – Radiohead sure know what they’re doing. On Friday 18th February, the internet was a tornado of activity with bloggers and journalists alike all desperate to be the first to hear and judge The King of Limbs. For Europeans, a hilarious afternoon followed with people waking up on the other side of the Atlantic, heading online and exclaiming, “Radiohead did WHAT?!”

It’s unlikely a band has ever been so good at promoting their output under their own steam, but there are two sides to this coin. Sales-wise, Radiohead couldn’t fail, but as for critical reception, they couldn’t win. The hype surrounding The King of Limbs – which the band were more than partially responsible for – had snowballed to such an extent that anything less than a genre-defining masterpiece would be seen as a disappointment.

So, now we’ve lived with the record for a while, we can see through the white noise that characterised the unleashing of the record and assess it in context properly. And you know what? It’s a disappointment.

Or, at least, it’s a disappointment coming from the band that brought us Kid A, In Rainbows et al, if not an outright bad record. While the willingness to go off-piste and experiment happily remains, Radiohead seem to be going through a fallow period for ideas.

The King of Limbs is very much a rhythm-driven album; skittering, off-kilter beats underpin the majority of the songs on show. While this is all very intriguing – as well as being the kind of thing most hugely popular and successful bands aren’t going to attempt in a hurry – it doesn’t always equate to “good”. Many of the cuts appear half-finished, as if the band have spent so much time and effort on the percussion that they’ve forgotten to write a proper song. Feral is the prime offender here, with snatches of chords and the odd vocal phrase, but little to actually enjoy.

However, Radiohead have never put out a terrible record and they’re not about to start now. They masterfully conjure an unsettling mood on Morning Mr. Magpie, leaving the listener constantly on edge, and the haunting theme also makes an appearance on opener, Bloom. Interestingly, the best song on the album is the most atypical of The King of Limbs sound: Codex. With most of the other tracks so sparse and drama-free, the warm, reverb-drenched piano of Codex is a revelation. Easily the most compelling and melodic cut on the record, the human, emotional side of the band really shines through.

Otherwise, it’s largely cerebral music to appreciate rather than adore; music for the head rather than for the heart or feet. Sadly, The King of Limbs – while a brave side-step – is a case of style over substance. It’s still superior to a lot of the material currently being released, but we know they’re better than this. They’ve enough goodwill in the bank for this to simply be a blip rather than a disaster, but with The King of Limbs, Radiohead have taken their eye off the ball.