Hail to the Thief by Radiohead
I think Radiohead is one of those bands where there is an ongoing argument as to which album is really their best. Many say OK Computer because it has has a wonderful mixture of the existential electronic dread that Radiohead worked to bring into mainstream 90’s rock as well as some amazing instrumental work, many say Kid A because of its monumental impact on electronic music at the time, and many say In Rainbows because it has many generally loved songs and a track list that has an smooth-as-butter flow. I say that the arguments are all justified— however I think a Radiohead album that is not talked about enough is their 2003 full length album, Hail to the Thief. Not saying that it’s their best, however I think collectively it has some of their best work and I’d like to review some of the work off of it for this blogpost. The three tracks I’m going to talk about off Hail to the Thief is “2+2=5,” “I Will,” and “A Wolf at the Door.”
Hail to the thief is really a masterful combination of the straightforward rock Radiohead showed on primarily their debut LP Pablo Honey and of course on OK Computer, and their progressive electronic music that revolutionized the state of electronic music after Kid A was released. Song like “Sit down, Stand up,” and “Myxomatosis” exemplify the kind of electronic programming that put Radiohead on the map, and they really fit into the confusing, fuzzy, struggle between
Starting with the opener of the album: “2+2=5.” The miscellaneous guitar noise at the beginning gives the listener a soft entry into the beautiful, haunting guitar arpeggio that starts the song. The arpeggio is going back and forth from an Fm to an Fmaj7sus2, which creates this eerie, unsettling tone. This song is packed full with dissonance— but it’s lush and haunting rather than sharp and alarming. On top of the guitar, we soon get equally unsettling vocals, a melody with a higher harmony that doesn’t follow a directly a third atop, making it seem like the harmony is floating rather than following. Thom’s voice in his upper-register sounds like a ghost to me— it’s truly chilling. I think vocal harmony is underrated, and that might initially sound a little off, but I think rock, pop, folk or any any kind of music really benefits from some little harmony in a verse. Many songs, especially modern pop songs, throw some harmonies on a chorus and then call it a day, but I think the attention to the intricate intertwining harmony makes this song so appealing. After this floaty, heady, spooky beginning half of the song, we are hit with a rough, rock-facing later half that
The next song I will talk about is “I Will.” It’s only a 2 minute song, but I think it has an incredible impact on the album as a whole. Simple chord structure, but it does something that I often find to make me really enjoy the song— the simple, lone guitar starts on the “V” and then resolves to the “i” which I think starts the listener off on a sort of high that is then released to the humdrum one chord. I also think there is awesome vocalization on the guitar that really intertwines well with the vocal and creates nice chord tension and resolution, and yet all of it is so simple. There is only two to three vocal part harmony with a single clean guitar going on underneath the song, so the little touch of melodic harmony on the guitar is a super nice addition that gives a simple song with fairly simple chord structure some life.
The last song I want to talk about is the last track on the album titled, “A Wolf at the Door.”
