5 keepers
keeper avg .545
Even being five years after the last album I wan't holding my breath in anticipation, preparing myself for another frustrating King Of Limbs rather than a magical In Rainbows. While rock songs are almost non-existent on this album so are the self-indulgent sampler jerk-offs. Instead most songs are electronic-based orchestral pop, an approach that Bjork perfected 20 (holy shit!) years ago. "Burn The Witch"**** (the "low flying-panic attack song") is the most assertive track, with a prominent string section providing a percussive effect; the strings gradually move from an insistent pecking to wild, atonal screeching, excruciatingly escalating the tension. "Daydreaming" and "Glass Eyes" are unassuming piano ballads, the former a dramatically insistent though repetitive "Moonlight Sonata.""Decks Dark"**** and "The Numbers"**** reinterpret Badly Drawn Boy's folk-pop as mid-tempo piano ballads; the former features haunting choral backing, while the latter ends with a dramatic string section. And Yorke fully embraces English folk in "Desert Island Disk"****, playing a subtle acoustic guitar part I frankly didn't know he was capable of. "Ful Stop" (the "foul tasting medicine" song) is as close to sampler-jamming as the album gets, with a weak, ad lib-sounding vocal melody over a re-worked "Fanfare For The Common Man." Though they keep this annoying tendency to a minimum a good part of the album is relatively weak. "Identikit" rehashes the minimal, dance-y "Lotus Flower" formula, ending with one of Johnny Greenwood's trademark jagged guitar solos, which manages to sound harsh, dry, and sloppy even with heavy delay, and "Present Tense" is similar to the first part of "Paranoid Android." The weak second half of the album ends with a long-awaited studio version of live staple "True Love Waits"****; though it may be unnecessary after a live version was included on the I Might Be Wrong live album it's still a good song.
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