RADIOHEAD Schallplatten & CDs

Review: A quarter century old now, yet these art-rock giants and eternal malcontents seem as restless in their muse and motion as ever - still chronicling an increasingly complicated and strenuous age yet doing it with finesse, grace and innovation. The urgent, invigorating strains of single 'Burn the Witch' were no anomaly, and 'A Moon Shaped Pool' shows them shaking off the more insular tendencies of their last opus 'King Of Limbs' to engage and electrify in a way that they haven't truly managed for years - radiant, celestial ambience shares space here with impressive ire and emotional engagement, with these peerless experimentalists delivering a record that transcends both their own work and the vast majority of the musical landscape they survey.

Review: There was naturally much excitement when A Moon Shaped Pool, Radiohead's surprise ninth studio set, popped up on streaming and download services back in May. Here it gets a CD release, offering those who prefer physical products a chance to bathe in its' woozy eccentricities. Seen by some as a return to their arty rock roots following an extended period spend exploring electronics, the album's 11 tracks draw on a variety of influences (krautrock, ambient, Pavement, James Blake, Stockhausen, intense melancholia etc.), with predictably impressive results. Occasionally elegant, string-laden and grandiose, always beautiful, and sometimes intensely moving, A Moon Shaped Pool is undeniably up there with the band's best work.