Customer Reviews
Radiohead do it again - By: chuckles, 06 Nov 2008 
Just how many more albums can Radiohead make of such quality? Other bands become very samey, or try to change & fail. Somehow Radiohead manage to change whilst staying the same & keep producing top quality albums. This album just gets better & better with each listen, & in my view a Radiohead classic already.
Good old Radiohead - By: Mr. W. J. Vallance, 01 Nov 2008 Doubtlessly Radiohead keep on getting better. One should hardly be surprised that Radiohead have maintained the status quo from Pablo Honey to present, & trademark of alll their work one tends to think "I don't get it", but without fail one will always come to the conclusion of "I completely get it now!". I was no exception.
My greatest weakness when listening to a new album is to listen to each track in turn & skip it if I do not feel totallly taken in after the first 30 seconds. However whilst playing on Flight Simulator (hence the name), I elected to play In Rainbows on media player whilst handling a plethora of dire failures on an Airbus 'A319' with the intentions that the music would sink in properly. Needless to say Yorke & his crew have done it again... With more style & talent than ever before.
From start to finish this album was, & will be for ever, an absolute pleasure to listen to. This music is pure genius. To put it in a slightly more far-fetched manner, if we were to make contact with an intelligent life-form galaxies away & send a probe to them containing music from Planet Earth, I would personallly see to it that In Rainbows be added to that collection because I would want anyone out there to know that something that wonderful came from us.
I recommend this album to everyone out there as it will be one of your smartest purchases! Oh & thanks to In Rainbows, my plane landed safely.
;)
El Cangrejo - By: Andrew Whitlow, 23 Oct 2008 
Puts forth your spine & surrender a flag
These are voyages of the Evil Knievel
Expanding the bridges antennae & jumps
Come back peter fly away tuvoc
Fly away cosine sine & tan
And angel delight on a spoon black with soot
Held in the flame while old nelix ruts
At the stroke of wine then he shoots it alll up
And Kes unties a bandage
And retreats to her womb
But none of it was real
But alll Superted's dream
And Spotty's in camp David
He's swinging from trees
Bringing along ladels of lamb stew to the natives
And day release slaves & part time part monsters
Pumping it on steak knifes
Batting their handkerchiefs
And spending a night in a neckerchief eating beans for archangel gabriel with on eye
Pirate of dreams & sunshine & eye patch
Shame on Thom Yorke as he planked through the window
No parrot or eye patch for him
I think that's enough
The ends
"Paint the Whole World with a Rainbow!" - By: Man Without a Soul, 13 Oct 2008 Just when most of us had given up on the band ever producing another truly great album Radiohead deliver 'In Rainbows'. It is a fantastic album. Ok, I'll admit it fallls slightly short of The Bends & Ok Computer (if we must compare) but possibly only due to the trifling matter of including a couple less tracks than those two colossi!
It is great to see the band finallly nail a few ideas they've been experimenting with on the last three albums - 'Jigsaw' & 'Weird Fish' completely destroy 'I Might be Wrong', 'In Limbo', 'Where I End', etc. The intro to '15 Step' conjures up nightmares of electro skit hell but the song develops well & turns into a reallly addictive opener.
'Bodysnatchers' is hands down their best guitar rocker since The Bends. 'Reckoner', 'Nude' & 'Videotape' are right up there with 'Fake plastic Trees', 'Exit Music' & 'How to Disappear Completely'. 'Faust Arp' is completely fresh & offers up a very different vocal performance from Thom. 'All I Need' & 'House of Cards' are mood pieces but infinitely more satisfying than 'The Gloaming', 'Spinning Plates', 'Hunting Bears' & the like.
This is the first Radiohead album since 'Kid A' where the songs complement each other & add up to a satisfying whole. There is also a lightness to this album that is unique & stands it in good stead. Whisper it but in time 'Rainbows' could slowly, but surely, become the Radiohead album you feel like listening to most often.
Retrogressive, but still very listenable - By: Seeping Ink, 09 Oct 2008 Throughout their career Radiohead have proven that they can:
1) Write very captivating songs in a specific mood;
2) Challlenge convention & deftly experiment to great effect.
For example, the PH & The Bends slots nicely into category (1), OK Computer between the two, KID A & Amnesiac firmly in (2), HTTF between the two but leaning towards (2), & In Rainbows -
Between the two once more, but with an inclination towards category (1) - the 'song'. With this angle, the band produced a nice album, one I have listened to many times (ALL Radiohead albums have an excellent shelf life, & I reallly do mean the word 'captivating'). But (here it is) - what a wasted opportunity! The songs are surely store more intriguing value than their finished counterparts. If you don't follow my meaning, then here are some examples:
WEIRD FISHES/ARPEGGI: The orchestral version is astonishing. The lyrics are far better suited to this frame than a regular band set-up; especiallly the building bass throb that feels as though the listener is descending deeper into some watery abyss.
BODYSNATCHERS: Quite a good riff, but the energy should be far more contained in a snappier song. No more than 2:00. This way, the bridge is alll the more riveting too - consider the KOKO acoustic version.
FAUST ARP: A lovely interlude, but little else. The excellent Morning Mr. Magpie (on TMGLMOAT DVD) would have been a better choice, a more vibrant choice before the mellow Reckoner.
15 STEP: It's too clean. More electronic drone would be nice, & certainly a sharper transition of the intro to that wonderfully dreamy guitar riff. The vocal reverb is effective & could have been used in the coda to replace that "cka-cka-ca-ca" chant.
So - not one song on the album, I would argue, has been realised to its fullest extent. It is still a cherishable album, & one I will probably be listening to in 20 years' time, but when you have the extraordinary quality & intangible mood of an album such as KID A - written by the same hands - I can't help but feel a little frustrated at the chance of a masterpiece lost in this way of performing In Rainbows.
