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| Artist: Radiohead
Label: Parlophone
Category: Music
List Price: £15.99
Buy New: £7.88
You Save: £8.11 (51%)
New (57) Used (17) Collectible (2) from £2.99
Rating:  193 reviews
Sales Rank: 4738
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.5
MPN: 84543
UPC: 724358454321
EAN: 0724358454321
ASIN: B000092ZYX
Release Date: June 9, 2003
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 A wake-up call of astonishing clarity October 10, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
The point here isn't whether this album marked Radiohead's return to reclaim their rightful throne from Coldplay's dour musical protectorate. It isn't a question of status. It isn't a question of melody versus experimentation, or guitar rock versus electro-blippery. In the end, it isn't really about the music at all.
Hail To The Thief is a warning. A stark warning about a future every bit as dystopian as those imagined by Orwell, Huxley or the Wachowski brothers. Confirming Thom Yorke in the role of a modern seer and soothsayer, it doesn't flinch from whispering uncomfortable secrets about our society's slow slide into drugged sleep. A sleep, he insists, from which we may very well never wake up. "It's the Devil's way now. There is no way out . . . it's too late now because you have not been paying attention."
The blame isn't neatly projected onto oppressive governments or power-crazed politicians. Although the album title is an ironic attack on usurper-in-chief George Dubya, Yorke's fractured lyrics pitilessly expose the cowardice which makes us close our eyes to abuse and console ourselves with lies. He turns the mirror on our own excuses and evasions, reminding us in song after song that "we don't wanna wake the monster." The disembodied voices we hear in his songs wriggle and protest, sidling away from responsibility. "Sandbag and hide . . . let me back, I promise to be good . . . I'm gonna go to sleep, let this wash all over me . . . we tried but there was nothing we could do."
But is the polemic being pushed at the expense of the music? Not a bit of it. The fact that these are some of the most heartrendingly beautiful songs they've ever recorded only adds power and pathos. Jonny Greenwood's continuing love affair with vintage electronics has resulted in some lush and lovely arrangements. Yorke's voice has never been better and the stark mechanisms of Kid A and Amnesiac have come to some kind of accommodation with melody. The results are often spectacular.
And the sense of gathering gloom isn't an unrelenting one. There's still room for hope, Yorke seems to be saying; there's still time to wake up and take charge of our lives rather than living at the disposal of dubiously motivated leaders, corporations and conglomerates. There's still time to head off Armageddon.
In the ethereal Sail To The Moon he dreams of a future where a president might "know right from wrong"; where a saviour might "build an ark and sail us to the moon." And in I Will, Everyman calmly turns the tables on those who'd deny him a future: "I won't let this happen to my children, meet the real world coming out of my shell . . . I will rise up."
Like the cursed Trojan prophetess Cassandra, Thom Yorke is probably doomed to disbelief by those who'd rather write him off as a paranoid obsessive with too much time on his hands. Cassandra warned about Greeks bearing gifts, but her advice went unheeded and the Trojan Horse duly wrought death and destruction. Yorke's writings and interviews have also spoken in the past of infiltrating "dark forces", eliciting a sharp response from British prime ministerial mouthpiece Alistair Campbell.
But if you're the type that still listens to prophecies, Hail To The Thief is a wake-up call of astonishing clarity.
Backwards, forwards? October 8, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
A great mix of OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac with a twist of gothic groove. They didn't compromise the jazz/prog/electronica experimentation of the latter two, but incorporated them into slightly more commercial song structures of the former for easier consumption [ and probably just to rock out a bit ].
I'm sure they'll continue to grow and experiment. I doubt they could stop, even if they tried... and they'll always get five stars purely for sticking to their guns in style.
8/10. Hail! July 3, 2007
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
It can take a few years to properly appraise an album by a band as great as Radiohead. It is important to shake off the initial impressions - distorted as they are by the weight of expectation - and allow the album time to grow on you. A band that has so consistently produced the best music of our generation deserves that. Radiohead are many different things for many different people - some fans will contest my choice of Kid A as the band's finest hour. But for me, 'Hail to the Thief' just doesn't hold together as well as that record. While the album includes some of their best songs yet (for me, 'Where I End and You Begin', 'A Wolf at the Door'), some of electronic experimentation is less successfully integrated into the songwriting as on 'Kid A'. While the album incapsulates all of their sonic concerns, the mood is jarringly uneven, and I never listen to it as a whole. Whereas there are also weak moments on 'Amnesiac', somehow the overall atmosphere of the record holds the songs together. That said, Radiohead reach the sublime on numerous occasions here, remaining one of the best bands around.
'2 + 2 = 5' breaks out of its ominous, 'Amnesiac'-esque opening into something as raw and passionate as their Bends-era material. A revitalising shock to the system, it sets a volatile tone for the rest of the album and provides a counterweight to some of the more dirge-like and ponderous tracks. 'Sit Down. Stand Up' just doesn't work for me, an arsenal of electronic effects deployed to no great consequence, over a non-song. For me, the subtlety of the sonic embellishment of Kid A is missing here: just special effects for their own sake. 'Sail to the Moon', in significant contrast, is a sublime, image-rich ballad in the mold of 'How to Diappear Completely' and 'Pyramid Song'.
The minimal electro of 'Backdrifts' has an echo of 'Idiotech' and 'Like Spinning Plates' but is less malevolent than the former and more melodic than the latter, successfully combining the machine-made with a pop sensibility. 'Go to Sleep' recalls some of the looser, guitar based tracks from Amnesiac, but is less oppressive than, say, Knives Out, revolving around an unusually groovy sequence of guitar notes in an odd time-signature. 'Where I End and You Begin', for me the album highlight, was gob-smackingly dismissed by Pitchfork as 'a U2 song'. Whereas the fast-paced rythmn and scratchy guitars bear a passing resemblance to 'Sundy Bloody Sunday', this is where the similarity ends. An apocalyptic epic, eerie keyboard drones compete with backwards guitar licks before building to a jaw-dropping climax, with Thom Yorke intoning "I will eat you alive" in a distinctly un-Bono-like manner.
After this peak it is easy to lose patience with the impossibly dreary 'We Suck Young Blood', a veritable funeral march. This in turn makes a poor match with the glitchy subsequent track, The Gloaming, which comes across as an unfinished idea. 'There There', apparently their most successful single since 'Karma Police', builds from a sweetly sung beginning into a deafening finale. A much-liked track, and more conventionally guitar-orientated than much of their recent material, it doesn't do much for me. 'I will' is a sweet, sad snippet of a ballad, that might have been fleshed out into something great, while 'A Punch-up at a Wedding' is almost unrecognisable for Radiohead in its rythmn and lyrical concerns, despite Thom's vocals. The monstrous rave synths of 'Myxamatosis' leave me a bit cold, while 'Scatterbrain' recalls songs as bittersweet as 'Fake Plastic Trees'. However, the final track 'A Wolf at the Door', is something else entirely, tapping into Yorke's anxiety at being a father, about having the strength to protect his children. It is entirely tangible and honest, and sung in a totally different range to his normal vocals, giving respite to some of his more fey moments. Varying the style of vocals in the future could produce similarly unexpected and brilliant results. It's not their finest album then, but can only be criticised in comparison to their own very high standards. Still leagues ahead of the rest.
The most ironic title ever. May 12, 2007
0 out of 11 found this review helpful
By their standard's dissapointing, there is no stand out track like previous album's. Yes There There is very good, and there are also good songs on this record as well, 2+2=5, Sit Down Stand Up, Where I end and you begin and Wolf at your door.
The reason this just scraps a 4 because I sense Radiohead did not take this as seriously as other albums, it's more laid back, indeed this album was recorded in a matter of weeks.
By the way the title alludes to Radiohead stealing songs of many electronic artists.
Hail! March 28, 2007
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
"Hail To The Thief" is a musical oxymoron: Warm yet cold, distant yet intimate, eerie yet lovely. While it doesn't quite work up to the eerie purity of past albums like "Kid A," Radiohead has crafted an album that manages to mix experimental electronics and rock'n'roll in equal measure. And it does it pretty darn well.
It opens with a strange electronic sputter, which slowly melts into a guitar melody, and the sound of Thom Yorke eerily singing, "Are you such a dreamer/to put the world to rights?" Otherworldly sound effects and entrancing rock music continue all through this album, with Yorke's singing warming up those cold songs.
The heart of these songs seems to be helplessness and sorrow; even panoramic piano pop like "Sail To the Moon" seems unhappy. But there are also eerie melodies, sweaty tribal pop, and chilly electropop laced with explosive percussion. There's even the acoustic "Go To Sleep," a folky number that stands alone in this blippy rock collection.
If you pick it apart, "Hail To The Thief" echoes Radiohead's past work: the styles of "The Bends," "Kid A," and others can be heard woven in there. For most bands, this would be a disaster. But Yorke and his band actually make it work -- their sound gets a little cluttered at times, yet the fusion of musical styles is nothing short of astounding.
"Hail" is not Radiohead's best album -- it doesn't have the intensity and purity that some of their other collections do. But it does pack a punch. Radiohead's "fusion" sound seems very cold and mechanical... until the melodies change. Sometimes it's an explosive riff or a rhythmic drum, or the whole song will simply speed up. The melody will warm up for a moment, only to get chilly again when it slows.
But a lot of the atmosphere has to be credited to Thom Yorke; while Yorke is often dissed for his high, dispassionate voice, here he seems to have emotions boiling just under the surface. And the odd note of his voice makes him sound almost ghostly. Which suits the music, by the way -- would a more robust voice sound as good against a cold, eerie backdrop?
"Hail To The Thief" uses most of Radiohead's past styles, and mishmashes them together into a surprisingly good album. Eerie, despairing and thoroughly entrancing.
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