First of all, I want to say that I am the biggest fan of Radiohead. I even have a mouse-bear tattoo that served as a logo for their Kid A era. With that being said, I denounce that music critics were obviously paid to praise Radiohead’s new album. To some of them, hearing a whistle of a clay bird was enough to confuse the band’s return with the return of the Messiah. Glorification was smoothed with the amazing video for the first single Burn The Witch that motivated everyone to deconstruct its political import. That is fine with me, but saying how this is their best song since the era of Kid A is pure nonsense.
So, here is a plea to all the music critics in the world: Please, listen to Amnesiac, Hail To The Thief and In Rainbows before you make a bold statement about A Moon Shaped Pool or Burn The Witch in particular. Even though Burn The Witch has a nice string section, its chorus does not give me any emotional arousal. It is far from the affective amplitude of one Reckoner.
The biggest flaw of the album is that Radiohead failed to reconcile technical perfection and emotional imperfection. The perfect example for it is Present Tense. We have everything there – attractive string orchestration, brilliant vocal, choir singing in the background, effort to impress the listener with variety of elements. Still, it lacks a fundamental element – a strong theme. It is what lacks on the whole album.
My favorite is Daydreaming, the second single from A Moon Shaped Pool that sounds just like Codex from their last effort. It is a minimalistic ballade with only a few piano tones and York’s suggestive voice. This takes you further than impressive string sections, Radiohead. If you want to hear how it sound when classic elements are efficiently mixed with modern expression, I highly recommend you to listen to Hidden by These New Puritans.
Before you get seduced by the hype, ask yourself a very important question: Do I care about instruments in the song or do I care about the way in which the instruments are used? Those who praise A Moon Shaped Pool are giving the advantage to the technical aspect of art piece. They don’t care about the aesthetics. Let’s be honest, this is not Radiohead’s because there is no invention we are used to getting from them with each album.
