Radiohead have seemingly run out of reinventions—but that could be for the best. During the sessions for 2011’s patchy King of Limbs, the world’s most innovative rock band hunkered behind sequencers and turntables, splicing together fragmented loops into droning collages like “Morning Mr. Magpie” and “Feral.”
“We didn’t want to pick up guitars and write chord sequences,” multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood told Rolling Stone of their creative flux. “We didn’t want to sit in front of a computer either. We wanted a third thing.” That “thing” boosted the band’s camaraderie, evidenced by their dynamic live arrangements for the Limbs tour. Problem is, it sucked the life out of their album.
A Moon Shaped Pool, the quintet’s ninth LP, is more summary than new chapter. Thom Yorke’s oceanic piano loops, half-mumbled falsettos and reversed vocal wails recall the insular Kid A–Amnesiac era, while Greenwood’s dense string orchestrations echo the warmest stretches of Limbs and its more organic predecessor, In Rainbows. Slow-burn synth-rock epic “Identikit” climaxes with their wildest guitar solo—arguably their only real guitar solo—since OK Computer.
Subtle sonic deviations offer Pool its own distinct fingerprint: Yorke’s emphasis on acoustic guitar (the flailing fingerpicked tones of “Desert Island Disk” and muted strums of “The Numbers”), the bossa nova groove of “Present Tense,” the eerie choral harmonies scattered throughout. But unlike Limbs, Pool never strains by adhering to a methodology. It just feels like a collection of songs—very fucking transportive songs.
Most Yorke lyrics hang suspended in a dream-like state, blending imagistic poetry with vague emotional outcries—an ambiguity that keeps the songs relatable, even if we don’t know what’s fueling the melancholy. A Moon Shaped Pool finds the frontman brooding even more than usual: He observes “gallows,” a hovering “dread,” a “spacecraft blocking out the sky.” On moon-lit reverie “Glass Eyes,” he exits a train at a “frightening place” and encounters faces of “concrete grey”—but instead of turning back, he trudges forward down a mountain. “I don’t know where it leads,” he croons over crystalline strings and piano. “I don’t really care.”
Yorke’s never approached strict confessional songwriting, but it’s hard not to read between the lines: In 2015, he separated from his longtime partner, Rachel Owen, and the ghosts of lost love linger in some of his barest lyrics. “You really messed up everything,” he intones on kraut-rock thrill ride “Ful Stop”; “Broken hearts make it rain,” he squeals, enraptured, on “Identikit”; the symphonic surge of “Daydreaming” closes with Yorke reversed and pitch-shifted, like a fire-breathing dragon: “Half of my life,” he huffs, a possible reference to his past relationship. The crushing blow is unavoidable—though projecting in too much backstory is a fool’s errand.