I love Radiohead. Their music is powerful and it speaks to me in unique ways that other music doesn’t. I’ve probably listened to the album " Kid A" more times than I could I count and the song “Motion Picture Soundtrack” still makes me cry like Matthew McConaughey Skyping his son in space. So when I heard that the new Radiohead album was “unlike anything we’ve ever heard" I got pretty excited. I was not disappointed either. Radiohead provided another powerfully haunting experience that stays with you long after the last track is over.
A Moon- Shaped Pool has all the right ingredients for great music. It has the same cinematic quality that the band’s guitarist, Johnny Greenwood, poured into film soundtracks such as "The Master" and "There Will Be Blood". This quality is fueled by the orchestration that is so prevalent in the album. Always experimenting and breaking the bounds of their genre, Radiohead gives the viola more presence than the electric guitar, using old methods to make very new music. At the emotional heart of the album lies the voice of Thom Yorke who guides this album’s aesthetic in the same way he did"Kid A". Put it all together and you get an album that it is truly special.
Opening with a song about a lynching and ending with a desperate plea for love, the album explores love, loneliness, and fear. Like most Radiohead albums, "A Moon-Shaped Pool" contains some pretty bleak lyrics. “Decks Dark”, for example, describes mankind as hopeless rag dolls being overtaken by space invaders. (Bummer!) Another song “Glass Eyes” describes the sudden panic anddepression of a passenger exiting a train. “I just off the train/ A frightening place/ … Panic is coming on strong.” The passenger flees the stations following the nearest road he can. “The path trails off/ And heads down a mountain/ Through the dry bush, I don’t know where it leads/ I don’t really care.” I know from experience that train stations can fell pretty lonely but it’s never been so bad that I’ve run into a random bush. As on-the-downside as the album gets unlike other Radiohead albums, there is still some optimism offered. “The future is inside us/ It’s not somewhere else,” declares Yorke. “People have this power/ The numbers don’t decide/ Your system is a lie.” The passenger may not care what’s beyond the bush but it can be something beautiful if he makes it so.
I could go on about the album, but it’s something you have to experience for yourself. Don’t get me wrong, this album isn’t for everyone. There’s some pretty abstract stuff in there. But you’ll never what it’s like till you try it. So take a dive into "A Moon-Shaped Pool" and figure what it’s like down there for yourself.
