The unmistakable lightness of Radiohead

By Jake Coyle

updated 12:48 p.m. ET May 24, 2008

WASHINGTON - The breakthrough for Radiohead on “Reckoner” — a song that underwent multiple incarnations on its way to “In Rainbows” — came by way of what Jonny Greenwood calls a “big percussion fest.”

Recording in an English country house, all five members of the group make a loud, cathartic racket — a habit-busting trick the band has practiced since primary school, says bassist Colin Greenwood.

“And I’m happy to say that success hasn’t changed us at all,” joked Jonny Greenwood, who would rather leave the percussion to Phil Selway’s drums and Thom Yorke’s rhythm guitar.

Whether through the primal release of a “big percussion fest” or by severing ties with its record label, Radiohead is giving the distinct impression of a band that has exorcised something.

Since self-releasing “In Rainbows” as a pay-what-you-want digital download last fall, Radiohead has moved quickly with the tilt of innovation. They surprised fans with intimate webcasts; they offered one track, “Nude,” in stripped down audio pieces for anyone to remix; they held a surprise concert so crowded that police insisted they move along.

On their seventh album, particularly on songs like the falsetto-rich R&B ballad “House of Cards” and the languorous “Nude,” the music reflects the same sense of freedom. The prevailing tone of the new material is — gasp! — a melodic warmth.

And this is a drastic change for what many consider the gloomiest band on the planet.

Meet the born-again Radiohead.

A hearth exuding their newfound glow
In a recent two-part interview with the band — first with the Greenwood brothers and Selway, second with Yorke and guitarist Ed O’Brien — a lightness was unmistakable. Much funnier than you’d expect, the quintet bemusedly contemplate wearing Speedos while shuffling into a Washington, D.C. hotel room.

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They had just performed in nearby Virginia, where torrential rain caused flooding and enormous traffic jams around the Nissan Pavilion. In the apocalyptic downpour, Radiohead functioned as a hearth, exuding their newfound glow.

Five shows into the first leg of their North America tour, they played confidently. At one point, Yorke urged the soaked crowd to “cuddle,” an unthinkable prospect for a Radiohead concert.

Tuneful beauty has always been part of Radiohead songs (like the “rain down” climax in “Paranoid Android”), but such moments have seldom been allowed to linger. Asked the origins of the new mood, Yorke is as clueless as anyone.

“I don’t know where it came from, to be honest,” said the 39-year-old singer, laughing heartily. “I think (‘In Rainbows’) has its moments of fraught tension, like ‘Bodysnatchers’ obviously. But it ends up in a good space. It starts off pretty anxious, but the end of ‘All I Need,’ by that point, everything is like, ‘Ahhh’ — getting it out of your system.”

When the band completed 2003’s “Hail to the Thief,” they essentially got what O’Brien calls the “machinery” of the music industry out of their system. Their six-album deal with EMI Music Group expired and they declined all suitors for a new deal.

The band was at a crossroads and low on energy. They were disappointed by “Hail to the Thief,” which they felt was unfinished.

“What was great about ‘Kid A’ was that it heralded a new period and it meant we went off in some cool new places,” said O’Brien,

40. “But the downside was that in the whole period up until the end of ‘Hail to the Thief,’ we picked up some nasty habits.”

The band, of whom all but O’Brien still live in their hometown of Oxford, had progressed steadily into more experimental territory after their 1993 debut “Pablo Honey” and the classic guitar rock follow-up, 1995’s “The Bends.” The unparalleled “OK Computer” (1997) elevated them to worldwide fame, but didn’t tame them. 2000’s “Kid A” and its companion piece “Amnesiac” followed.

The outwardly political “Hail to the Thief,” something of a return to guitar-based rockers, was the first sign that Radiohead’s path had become confused. Afterward, the band members occupied themselves with their families. Yorke released a solo album, “The Eraser” in 2006.

“We were going along in a certain trajectory and then suddenly with ‘Hail to the Thief,’ it was: we can’t carry along in that way anymore,” said Yorke. “To me the hardest thing was finding a reason to carry on.”

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