Radiohead, Hail To The Thief

Great artists often reach an apotheosis in their careers beyond which they can do what ever they want. Radiohead managed that with OK Computer back in 2000, then followed up with Kid A, which was a low-rent, high-profile slumming in Aphex Twin territory, indulging in noise more than music. Which is fine—we’re as amenable to “sound experiments” as the next guy. But we couldn’t help feeling like Thom Yorke and company were ignoring their core competency in writing soaring and intellectual pop as hummable as it was thinkable. This new one represents a truce between experimentalism and the irrepressible urge to just write a singalong. Recommended for its longevity in your sub-collection of albums to which you actually listen.