The new Radiohead album is out, because they decided to release it a day early, apparently.

I gave it a couple of listens, and... it's kind of boring.

Lotus Flower is the only one that stands out at the moment, and that might be because I watched the dancing Thom Yorke video for the song before listening to the whole thing. Also because it has a discernible melody.

I read an opinion somewhere that it sounded a lot like Yorke's solo album released a while back, and that's pretty much the most apt summation of it so far--in that it feels less like a collaborative effort and more a product of Yorke writing the entire thing and letting the band tinker with it a bit. Which I find to be a bit unfortunate. I mean, I'm not someone who's still complaining to the heavens that they've abandoned any sort of guitar-heavy sound post-OK Computer, so I don't mind in theory that they decided to go in this electronic minimalism direction... but the songs go nowhere. And so the entire album has this lazy, mediocre feel to it.

I might like the entire album after a couple of tries, but you know what... it's OK if I don't. Like I said a couple days ago, the band's been around for nearly 20 years--a dip in quality was inevitable. Really, the only person I can think of at the moment that is/was still awesome decades after he started recording is Tom Waits, and I think that's more due to a bizarre personality overruling any decline in age.

So I don't know. It's not a great record, and it really doesn't even try to be. It's just kind of there. It's not a sad day.