I don't even really know what W.A.S.T.E. Central is for, but this seems like the only appropriate venue to express my feelings about the new album.
It took me until yesterday to realize that this album is brilliant. I instantly loved every preceding album. Especially In Rainbows. In fact, I loved In Rainbows before it was released, as I downloaded bootleg recordings of the live shows leading up to its release. By the time In Rainbows was available, I knew almost every song by heart.
The King of Limbs is a different kind of album. Duh. This is not news to any Radiohead fan; each album they release is different from the last. But there was something about the TKoL that I couldn't quite grasp. Something about it that was at once incredibly attractive and yet somewhat repulsive to me. I listened to it several times through the first week it was released. Since then, I hadn't gone back to it until yesterday. I think I finally know why, but I'm not sure I'll be able to articulate it:
The King of Limbs is mesmerizing. It doesn't just demand full attention, it takes it. Sometimes I feel like my mind is swimming in all the sounds. You know that saying "You can't see the forest for the trees"? Well, this album is like that for me. My focus goes from sound to sound to sound and I just get so dazzled by each one that I can hardly hear the piece as a whole. At first I think that bothered me on a subconscious level, but now I love it. That swimming, mesmerized feeling is amazing.
Radiohead always takes me somewhere else. Somewhere outside of my own head. This time they take me inside my own head, but they come inside too.
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