THE KING OF LIMBS by RADIOHEAD (2011, Self Released)

The signs for Radiohead's eighth album were good. No one knew if and when it would finally appear but the preceding album, 'In Rainbows', was a return to form and there had also been the release of the  British Legion charity single 'Harry Patch (In Memory Of)' the haunting tribute to the last of the WWI veterans.

Fans were given a week notice. THE KING OF LIMBS, named after a 1,000 year old tree in Savernake Forest, would be released on 18th February 2011 as a digital download from Radiohead's site, with a physical version to follow later. It was released without any singles but with an accompanying video for the track 'Lotus Flower'.

The album feels loose and experimental. It's mainly fragments of melodies, sampled, looped and reworked into something unusual less song-based and spontaneous sounding. 'Lotus Flower' is the most conventionally song-based track and also the most humane. Due to the amount of loops and samples much of the album sounds cold and robotic, but at least here with Thom Yorke's vocals higher in the mix, his words clearly audible for a change, and with handclap percussion there is some sense of the warmth that 'In Rainbows' had. 'Codex' is a slow piano-led ballad that that's worth checking out, it's cut from the same cloth as 'Harry Patch' and similarly haunting.

Beyond these two little here that would please a fan of more conventional Radiohead tracks. It's messy, scattershot and indulgent. The worst of the bunch is 'Give Up The Ghost' which descends into a dirge of over-layered caterwauling by Yorke. It's horrible to listen to.

If you were being kind you could say THE KING OF LIMBS is challenging and uncompromising. But if you were being honest you'd say pretentious, distant and completely unloveable. At only eight tracks on it also feels like a stopgap. It's for completists only and destined to be the Radiohead album most likely to gather dust.

Phew, glad that one's over.