Following January’s Wall of Eyes, the trio of Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke, alongside Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner, return with a second LP this year, and third overall – of intricacy and invention – with dark, moody lyrics, and musical excellence. Again this is rich, rewarding, complex work, not always immediate, but grows on several listens with nuanced themes of foreboding, wistful melancholy, and mixed emotions. There’s always a dark cloud over Thom Yorke’s lyrics, but it’s constantly evolving into fascinating shapes and often with an underlying environment theme. “In a beautiful world/ We are melting,” he sings on the floaty, synthy opener Foreign Spies. “We overflow in a hurricane/ We can feel no pain / It's so close that we disappear,” on the slow, simmering Instant Psalm, which has gliding orchestral strings. Zero Sum ups the energy, agile brilliant scratchy guitar work and punchy horns, pointing perhaps to the singularity that AI might present with reference to that popular PC operating system of the 90s: “A tipping point, loose banister … They're so overconfident, confident, confident, / That's another red flag, red flag/ The masterclass, the TED Talk / That's a lot to burn for no reason / They're thinking all the ways the system will provide / Windows 95, Windows 95.” Skinner’s drumming is particular strong on Colours Fly (plus an eastern flavour on guitar riff), and also on Eyes and Mouth, with Greenwood’s skipping up and down the fretboard with great invention and skill. No Words has a fabulous bassline, beat, and catchy melodic energy, while previous single and Song of the Day Don’t Get Me Started has an oddball loping keyboard before Skinner’s brilliance kicks in again with a skittering, light-touch polyrhythmic scatterbeat. Standouts are popping up all over, all the way to simpler closer Bodies Laughing. Perhaps another portrait of a dystopian future, but musically, a fabulously evolving and adventurous project. Out on Self Help Tapes/ XL Recordings.
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