FEATURE:
Pigs in the House, a Wolf at the Door
Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief at Twenty
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I am coming in early…
marking the anniversary of Radiohead’s most underrated album. Hail to the Thief is the sixth studio album from the Oxford band. Released on 9th June, 2003, I wonder whether a twentieth anniversary will come out. I feel that there were a lot of positive reviews for Hail to the Thief in 2003, but there were others who did not bond with it. In 2000, Radiohead released Kid A. That remains one of their most important albums. The year after, Amnesiac came out. With songs from that album recorded during the same sessions as Kid A, it did not get the same sort of celebration. Even if there were a load of positive reviews, I think people do not really speak about Hail to the Thief as one of the classics. To me, it is right up there with the likes of The Bends, OK Computer and In Rainbows. I have been listening back to the album and I wonder whether there will be anything announced ahead of its twentieth anniversary next month. A Special Collectors Edition did come out in 2009, but it would be good to think that an anniversary edition could be announced. Producer with their long-term collaborator Nigel Godrich, Hail to the Thief contains some of Radiohead’s best work. In fact, the best song of their career is in there. I don’t think anything tops There, There! If one can look at some of the political messages and anger on the album as reference to what was happening in the U.K. prior to 2003, then you could also think about America. Whether Thom Yoke was aiming his lyrics at those in the House of Commons or the U.S. President, George W. Bush, that is up to the listener. Songs that documented the unfolding war on terror and the surrounding political discourse, Hail to the Thief was one of the most political releases of Radiohead’s career to that point. Maybe that is why some were not instantly enamoured of the album.
Although Hail to the Thief is quite a dark and eerie album, it feature some truly beautiful moments. Sail to the Moon (subtitled Brush the Cobwebs Out of the Sky) is a paen to York’s young son. I love the fact that the songs all had alternate names. Like titles of books. 2 + 2 = 5 (The Lukewarm) and Sit Down Stand Up (Snakes & Ladders) precedes Sail to the Moon, and it is one of the band’s strongest opening two songs. Where I End and You Begin is one of their great deep cuts; The Gloaming points back to the sort of sound and experimentation on Kid A and Amnesiac, whilst A Punchup at a Wedding is full of vivid imagery and incredible groove. Ending with A Wolf at the Door (It Girl. Rag Doll), Hail to the Thief sticks in the memory. At fourteen tracks, maybe there are one or two songs that could have been cut – though I think everything earns its place. I know that the band might disagree. Thom Yorke has said how he would like to edit things down. Maybe there was this anger that meant the band had to get everything out. Wanting to be experimental but also accessible, perhaps that meant songs such as There, There sat alongside The Gloaming and Myxomatosis. I want to come to a couple of features before ending with some reviews.
In June 2018, Albumism marked fifteen years of a Radiohead album that remains vital is divisive. I think that Hail to the Thief deserves more love than it has been afforded by some (the band included. If you have not heard the album, then go and spend some time with it:
“Tracks like album opener “2+2=5” are charged with angst, paranoia, and amps dialed all the way up. With callouts to 1984 Doublethink, Dante’s Inferno and even Chicken Little, “2+2=5” is a rollicking post-election diatribe on the way that the world is spinning off kilter. As Yorke warns, “You have not been paying attention” in the chorus, the song acts as a rebellious wake up call to a sleeping populace. It’s all steam ahead as the band blast their way through the short 3-minute runtime, packing the song with energy and bluster.
The album is a fever dream that shape shifts with each passing bar. Songs like “Sit Down. Stand Up” and “The Gloaming” are haunting and dark, whilst songs like “Sail to the Moon,” “I Will,” “Scatterbrain” and “A Punchup at a Wedding” offer softer moments and allow a little bit of light in.
The album’s most exciting moments are when the band is at its most experimental. Tracks like “Myxomatosis” with its shuffling off-beat groove, the merging of man and machine on “Backdrifts,” and the two minds of “Where I End And You Begin” all demonstrate why Radiohead are vital listening to anyone interested in the deconstruction of songwriting.
That’s not to say that the album is without its moments of sublime songcraft. Standouts like “There There” and “Go To Sleep” exemplify the band’s ability to write blissful musical journeys.
Perhaps overly long, the album does occasionally suffer from too many ideas squeezed into its fourteen tracks and misses the mark from time to time. In fact, after its release, Thom Yorke famously posted his preferred sequencing of the album cutting it down to a solid 10-track outing. It might be a hard road to tread, and it can feel at times like it's a little unfocused, but 15 years on, Hail to the Thief remains a journey worth taking”.
I want to move onto a fascinating and perceptive feature from The Mancunion. Daniel Galloway wrote that, whilst some of the songs and themes can be heavy and terrifying, there are as snapshot and documentation of our childhoods and youth. A time when things were pretty scary and intense, Hail to the Thief has relevance today:
“Hail to the Thief is stated by the members of Radiohead to be their least favourite project, to them feeling clunky and unedited. However, this album’s subject matter, execution, and blend of styles culminated to become a beautiful interpretation of the modern world, that is more relevant than ever. After 20 years, what relevance does this project have today?
This album is drenched in fear and uncertainty, directly reflective of the surrounding world at the turn of the millennium. Over 14 songs, rich harmonic and melodic work festers into a furious breakdown of anger and helplessness that overtakes any individual in a world lurching towards ever darker crevasses. From outbursts of fury in ‘2 + 2 = 5’, to the raw vulnerability of ‘I Will’, or the final awakening in ‘A Wolf at the Door’, Hail to the Thief charts the growing insignificance of the individual.
Musically, this album reflects on the rocky styles of earlier Radiohead, yet we feel the abstract dystopia of Radiohead’s Kid A and Amnesiac remain. Modular synths, drum machines, and digitally altered guitars are presented as permanent, nagging doubts and fears to the arrangements of piano, percussion, guitar, and vocal parts.
‘2 + 2 = 5’ opens the album, with a nod to Orwell’s 1984, the themes of political control, and the futility of resistance, are already as plain as day. Screams of “Paying Attention” during the breakdown create a sudden draw to this album that reveals the severity of the situation at hand. The juxtaposition between the drum machine underlay, while guitars soar overhead is reflective of a fundamental change in the world, a feeling of dystopia that lurks ever-present. These themes are furthered by the programmed march of “Backdrifts”, that hints at the Western world’s slide away from democracy and liberty at the time of the War on Terror.
There is also a vulnerability and humanity to this album. ‘Sail to the Moon’ is emotionally straining and evocative, as haunting piano accompanies lyrics that contemplate the unfortunate fate of humanity if nothing changes. This is also reflected in ‘I Will’, a song about the Gulf war, in which the anger of the lyrical content is allowed to shine through the simplicity of guitar, and beautiful, yet tense, vocal harmonies. Having recently become a father at the time of recording, Yorke’s deep-rooted fears about what awaited humanity come to the fore here, and become a touchstone for us all to reflect on what we want the future to hold.
Despite the abstract nature of many of the themes already touched upon, the end of the album brings the listener back down to earth. In three-and-a-half minutes we hear the true fury of Yorke come to fruition, with references to contemporary political events, dystopian fiction, and the ignorance of privileged upper classes. Selway’s drumming ranges from a subdued, rhythmic pattern to the beating of the crash cymbals and snare runs that follow the call to action that this song is. Layers of strings, synths, and guitar parts build to a swell that really makes you stand to attention as we are told all that we need to know about the world in which we live.
Going to Los Angeles and recording the album in two weeks, this project was a departure from the agonising process of Kid A and Amnesiac, a burst of creativity that is heavily reflected in the album through a great impetus and urgency to shout its message as loud as possible.
Overall, at the heart of this album, is fear; the logical consequence of these existential issues. As climate change threatens to drown us, starve us or boil us, as war and extremism grow in places we never expected to see them again, as the fundamental values we took for granted become undermined, Yorke’s lullabies, written to his son, inspired by the childlike innocence of Bagpuss, may be all the hope we can cling on to. Maybe our presidents will find right from wrong, but if not, we will need that Ark.
Yet, this is not to fall into the nihilistic trope that surrounds Radiohead. This album is particularly poignant for young people today as it encapsulates the world we have grown up in. The fear of the millennium had gone from the esoteric and mysterious unknown of Kid A, to the sadistic beauty of the 21st century. By encapsulating the feelings that have surrounded us, I find this work a tool for introspection, to reflect on these issues and question them”.
As I said, most of the reviews for Hail to the Thief have been positive. Whilst there is a lot of the personal in there, strangely I see Radiohead’s sixth album as being American. Recorded there, one feels Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien and Philip Selway talking aim at the White House and President. For sure, there was also some anger aimed at Tony Blair. Two years after the terrorist attacks in the U.S., Hail to the Thief felt relevant, sobering, and vital! It still does twenty years later. This is what Rolling Stone observed in their review from 2003:
“Radiohead’s Hail To the Thief is a product of its moment: recorded in late 2002, during the American and British governments’ slow, inevitable march to Iraq, of which lead singer Thom Yorke was an outspoken opponent. Hail is filled with images of monstrous, Orwellian force from which there is no escape. On “Sit down. Stand up,” Yorke assumes the voice of Big Brother, giving rote, meaningless orders — “Sit down/Stand up” — over and over. With equal parts whine and sneer, he says, “We can wipe you out anytime.” Radiohead have always been paranoid and pessimistic, but thanks to recent history, people who used to seem paranoid now seem prudent.
Hail begins with “2+2=5,” a brooding indictment of an apathetic public; the title is pulled directly from George Orwell’s 1984. While the world was being ruined, Yorke says, you were at home, allowing yourself to believe the lies. Now it’s too late. In a precious falsetto a boy might use in church, he sings, “It’s the devil’s way now/There is no way out.” But a moment later he’s manic, screaming, “Because you have not been paying attention!” Yorke then meditates on the words paying attention, repeating them until he sounds like he’s shaking with rage as he sings.
Despite the anger and bitterness, Hail to the Thief is more musically inviting than Radiohead’s last two outings. The album’s fourteen tracks — particularly the percussive, mesmerizing “There There” — are more tuneful and song-focused than 2000’s Kid A or 2001’s Amnesiac. Electronic textures still abound amid the guitars and piano — there’s still synth-y sonic schmutz and squiggles that seem like data transmitted from another plane of sound. But there are so many delicious melodies here, so much that’s both soothing and twisted and catchy, so much to sing along with, even if our prognosis is grim.
Consider “Myxomatosis,” definitely the best song ever about a diseased mongrel cat. The feline protagonist has just returned from outside and has possibly had sex, but now he’s confused, and he stammers against a tense heartbeat drum, “I don’t know why I feel so tongue-tied.” Thanks to the funky fuzzed-out guitar, somehow the name of the disgusting five-syllable rabbit disease flows from Yorke’s lips like poetry.
“A Punch-up at a Wedding” is a soulful, melancholy groove anchored by a snarling bass line and Yorke’s efficiency with lyrics. The imagery is so clear that the song becomes a short story. You can hear the family, dysfunctional beyond repair, hurling leftover anger at one another after perhaps the worst moment of their collective life: “You had to piss on our parade/You had to shred our bigday.” And yet the beautiful piano chords and Yorke yelling, “It’s a drunken punch-up at a wedding!” make it difficult not to sing along.
Hail‘s final song, “A Wolf at the Door,” asserts the impossibility of escaping your demons. “I keep the wolf from the door,” Yorke sings, “But he calls me up/Calls me on the phone/Tells me all the ways that he’s gonna mess me up.” It’s sad, dark, witty and hilarious all at once. Yorke has no answer for the wolf but to try and coo himself to peace. And the rest of us have Radiohead to help us get through”.
I will end with a review from Pitchfork. Not ones to often hand out big scores and glowing reviews, they were definitely impressed and moved by Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief. As this epic album turns twenty on 9th June, I wanted to spend some time with it. There is so much eclecticism and range through Hail to the Thief when it comes to sounds and lyrics. Such a rewarding and fascinating listen:
“We Suck Young Blood" returns to the piano mode the band has explored increasingly since Kid A, a sort of drunken New Orleans death dirge that embodies its vampiric title, creeping along at a measured, sickly pace punctuated only by languid, distanced handclaps. The approach pays off hugely, as Yorke's gorgeous, metallic whinny embraces the stumbling progression with harmony after harmony, and moments of depressed, gentle wistfulness.
Along with "Backdrifts", "The Gloaming" exposes the band's potential future. Simple, looping glitches and obstinate digital blurts dash all expectations, remaining resolutely compact, borrowing huge synthetic reverb plates such that Yorke can sing over his own voice. It's arguably academic in its basic composition-- a theoretical dare-- but "The Gloaming" is one of few risks on this relatively sociable record, a wink to the more studious members of their audience.
Which is where the advance single "There There" picks up, embodying the unification of Radiohead's recently mixed aims. Jonny wants to play with analog synths, Ed and Colin want to bash guitars, Thom wants to change music forever, and they finally meet up in this terrifically strange, yet structurally straightforward anthem. "There There" builds on more universal lyrics, soaring harmonies and a thundering crescendo the band wisely trimmed from its concert length (it originally began after Yorke's midpoint scream). Yorke said he wept uncontrollably when he heard the first mix of it, and the unmastered MP3s of Hail to the Thief which leaked in March support his professed reaction: Unlike the rest of the album, "There There" is essentially unchanged.
Possibly even more inspiring (and enduring) are "Myxomatosis" and "A Wolf at the Door", two of the last tracks on the album. The former is a buzzing prog redux of OK Computer's "Airbag" that shows how the simplicity Radiohead strive for can work wonders with tempo; drums fall all over the track until Thom winds up a layered, head-spinning (intoxicated?) verse that spills the rhythm onto the floor. It's a dizzying stereo-panned stomp, and one of Hail to the Thief's finest moments.
As usual, Radiohead save a masterstroke for the closing slot: "A Wolf at the Door" continues in the peculiarly Slavic jazz-blues mode first explored in Amnesiac's Russo-Bayou parlor waltz "Life in a Glasshouse". But "A Wolf at the Door" is more thorough, refined and consequently potent-- almost slick-- in comparison with its drunken, ephemeral predecessor. It's here, at the end of things, that Yorke most openly deals with the impact of his physical assault three years ago and his still-maddening fears of role-playing traps in society and relationships (nicely summarized in a quick nod to Bryan Forbes' terrifying The Stepford Wives). Evil is out there-- he's suffered its wrath-- and like a terrified Chechnyan matriarch, he relies on tangible protection from the fuckers and future come to ransom his child.
For its moments of gravity and excellence, Hail to the Thief is an arrow, pointing toward the clearly darker, more frenetic territory the band have up to now only poked at curiously. Experimentation fueled the creativity that gave us Kid A and Amnesiac, but that's old hat to Radiohead, who are trying-- and largely succeeding-- in their efforts to shape pop music into as boundless and possible a medium as it should be. Without succumbing to dilettantism, they continue to absorb and refract simpler posits from the underground, ideas that are usually satisfied to wallow in their mere novelty. The syncretic mania of Radiohead continues unabated, and though Hail to the Thief will likely fade into their catalog as a slight placeholder once their promissory transformation is complete, most of us will long cherish the view from this bridge”.
One of Radiohead’s best and most important albums, I wonder if the band members will mark Hail to the Thief’s twentieth anniversary next month. Maybe they still feel it is bloated - though an anniversary release could trim the tracks down and have a new disc or vinyl with demos and tracks that didn’t make the cut. At under an hour, and with very few tracks lasting that long, I feel Hail to the Thief is an easy enough listen when it comes to length. It is wonderfully sequenced and produced, and there is some world-class songwriting and performances throughout. A very different album to 2001’s Amnesic, Radiohead would follow Hail to the Thief with 2007’s In Rainbows. Again, a very different album, this was more about love and the personal. It goes to show that, when it comes to Radiohead, you could…
NEVER quite predict them!