Read this today it gives a good description of the album imo.
“King Of Limbs” is alright if you’re looking for something which is stuck between the trad-rock stations, which the band seem ready and willing to abandon, and the far side, which the band don’t seem quite willing to completely embrace. If you haven’t heard Tune-Yards or Flying Lotus or The Notwist, you’ll probably think “King Of Limbs” is alright. You know that the band have been listening to the right records and that they have the right motivations for their electrobleeperyrock haze, yet they just don’t seem able to close the deal
Instead of conviction, there is conservatism. They’re a big band who want to make the big jump into the unknown, but something is holding them back for going for broke. The more I listen to “King Of Limbs”, the more it simply fades into the background like a bad ambient electronica album. You don’t get that with “Cosmogramma” or “Butter” or “Space Is Only Noise” or “Cerulean”, four albums which “KIng Of Limbs” would probably like to be seen hanging around with. With “King Of Limbs”, the spark which sends those other albums into the stratosphere is missing. Listening to “King Of Limbs”, you keep hearing a band who have inexplicably donned straitjackets.
Oh sure, it has moments when all of that uneasy, slightly fussy abstraction finds a focus and you can see where the band wanted to go. “Bloom” is a wild, bracing blast, “Codex” has a graceful, old-fashioned, orchestral style and “Lotus Flower” has a fine, idiosyncratic momentum (even when you’ve not watching the video). Elsewhere, it’s hard to pinpoint any moments when the album or band truly gels. You can hear Jonny Greenwood’s film score influence throghout for sure, which is always a magnificent sound, and York’s liking for skittery, glitchy electronics is clear and present, but where’s the influence of the others on this sonic shopping list? It’s no surprise that most electronic producers fly solo so Radiohead’s collective embrace of the sound was always going to create some bumps.
When you forget about the sideshows (there’s now apparently a raft of conspiracy theories surrounding “King Of Limbs”) and simply view the album as a single piece of art, it’s OK, but far from great. While it’s always interesting to see a big rock band abandon their comfort zone, “King Of Limbs” is really another grope in the dark after the huge, confident strides once taken on “Kid A”. Sure, they seem to have abandoned the dumb-fuck indieguitar histronics of their early days and that’s to be welcomed. But a band of Radiohead’s ability need to be bolder and brasher. Or, perhaps as seems to be the case, true adventures in sound can be only be had when the artist in question has absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.
