"... hanging out with Radiohead is kind of like getting high with a bunch of librarians."

Though I had heard the MP3s of Hail to the Thief that were floating around before the album came out on Tuesday, I hadn't listened to it until last night. I'm biased, I know -- I adore Radiohead. I even think Pablo Honey is a vastly underrated pop album. ("Stop Whispering"? C'mon, people, that's a damn powerful song.) Hail to the Thief is an amazing album, on the same intense, creative, boundary-pushing level that everything else they've done is on. If you put a gun to my head and made me choose between the new album and OK Computer, I'd be dead. And you can really tell the difference between the pre-release MP3s and the album -- the mix is different, the vocals are sharper, and the stereo swims through your head. Radiohead, despite writing amazing songs, are a studio band, with Nigel Godrich acting as the band's Sir George Martin, so you shouldn't listen to anything but their band-sanctioned studio output.

I will say this about the new album over OK Computer. If you've never heard Radiohead or always hated them even though you've never really listened to them (like my girlfriend -- sorry, Jen, there are better songs than Pearl Jam's "Black" -- much better songs), I'd give you Hail to the Thief to listen to. For one thing, the conflict is much more palpable -- every song has a discernable villian. Whether the villian is personified in first person ("Sit Down. Stand Up.", "We Suck Young Blood") or third person ("A Punchup at a Wedding"), or the villian is described in abstract with oblique yet heartfelt poetry ("I Will"), there's more for an uninitiated fan to understand. It speaks to the directness with which Thom Yorke, a vocal opponent to the war in Iraq, needs to respond to the world around him.

The songs also have more hooks. OK Computer is an album about isolation and lonliness, so most of the music is necessarily distant. Hail to the Thief is angry as all get out, and it's an anger that reaches out of the speakers and grabs you. It throttles you, it fuels your own anger, and it even makes you want to cry at how hopeless being angry really is. Hail to the Thief gets your attention, even if you haven't been paying attention. (Wry smile.)

Speaking of which, the album is not overtly political -- they deny the album's title is directly related to the 2000 election -- and yet Radiohead have inadvertently written one of the greatest protest albums ever. However, the protest is not "1, 2, 3, what are we fighting for?" The protest is against you and I, as in "2 + 2 =5", "It's too late now/BECAUSE YOU HAVE NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION."

I command you to purchase (not download) Hail to the Thief. If you can get the special edition which comes with super-cool packaging, get that -- it has a lyrics sheet. Radiohead is still the best band producing music right now, taking the rock genre into directions no one else is doing, marrying old and new techniques seamlessly, and recording the sort of timeless albums that most record executives simply don't know how even to describe.