If you dont like Radiohead by now, 1)You're stupid, and 2)You probably wont get into Hail to the Thief.  It's not exactly the return to guitar that we were all hoping for and were promised, but Radiohead's sixth studio album finds a band that is increasingly aware of its place in music today.  It seems to me that the two previous records, Kid A and Amnesiac, were a desperate attempt to leave conventional ideas of pop music in the dust after the amazing breakthrough success of Ok Computer.  The albums were of course brilliant, but also somewhat cold and hard to fully access.  Therein lay the beauty, but on Hail to the Thief Radiohead have reaffirmed their whole purpose for making music.

            The result is an album that sounds like it could have been recorded between OK Computer and Kid A/Amnesiac.  Over the whole record, guitars crash and pianos pound, and computers bleep and drum machines simmer.  There is almost a sense that Radiohead are enjoying themselves more.  And theyve got funk. Not George Clinton, James Brown funk, but there is a definite groove to some of the songs.  There is more musicianship here than there has been, and it makes for a very strong effort from what I believe is the most influencial and important band since the Beatles.  Feel free to argue that with me, but it's the honest truth.

            Some standouts tracks, lessee.  Go to Sleep (Little Man being Erased) is a throwback to songs like Paranoid Android, with its strong beat and jangly acoustic/electric see-sawing.  In contrast, songs like Backdrifts (Honeymoon is Over) pulse with synth-and-drum machines that are more continuations of Kid A material.  A Punchup at a Wedding (No no no no no no no no) has a great groove that you can't help bob your head to.  A definite standout track is Myxomatosis (Judge, Jury, and Executioner).  It has this pounding synth-like riff that carries the song to a place that is both new, and yet undeniably Radiohead.  Hail to the Thief does not disappoint; with lines like "It's the devil's way now/ There is no way out/ You can scream and you can shout/ It's too late now/ You have not been paying attention", you feel oddly comfortable with the future of rock and its greatest gift in Radiohead.