Hail to the Thief

by Radiohead

Hail to the Thief cover art
  • Type: Album
  • Released: June 9, 2003
  • Label: Parlophone, Capitol
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Length: 56:29
  • Community rating: 4.3/5 from 55 ratings

Artists on this release: Philip Selway, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Thom Yorke, Colin Greenwood

Album Notes & Community Reviews

A sprawling and eclectic work, 'Hail to the Thief' serves as a confluence of Radiohead's earlier guitar-driven alternative rock and the electronic experimentation of their 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac' period. The album's anxious and politically charged lyrics are widely interpreted as a response to the 'War on Terror' era, wrapped in cryptic and often surrealist imagery. Despite its lengthy and varied tracklist, the record is unified by a sense of urgency and paranoia, capturing a band working with a renewed, spontaneous energy after their more meticulous studio-focused projects.

Genres

Descriptors: alienation, complex, conscious, forest, male-vocalist, melodic, menacing, political, progressive, rhythmic, uncommon-time-signatures

Tracklist

  1. 2 + 2 = 5 (3:19)
  2. Sit Down. Stand Up (4:19)
  3. Sail To The Moon (4:18)
  4. Backdrifts (5:22)
  5. Go To Sleep (3:21)
  6. Where I End and You Begin (4:29)
  7. We Suck Young Blood (4:56)
  8. The Gloaming (3:32)
  9. There, There (5:23)
  10. I Will (1:59)
  11. A Punch Up at a Wedding (4:57)
  12. Myxomatosis (3:52)
  13. Scatterbrain (3:21)
  14. A Wolf At the Door (3:21)

Credits

  • Colin Greenwood - bass, synthesizer [string synth], sampler, bass guitar
  • Jonny Greenwood - guitar, analogue systems, ondes martenot, laptop, piano, glockenspiel, keyboards, toy piano
  • Ed O'Brien - guitar, effects, backing vocals, voice
  • Philip Selway - drums, percussion, backing vocals
  • Thom Yorke - vocals, lyrics, guitar, piano, laptop, words by
  • Nigel Godrich - producer, recorded by, edited by, mixed by
  • Stanley Donwood - design [packaging], illustration [painting of words onto black canvas]
  • Graeme Stewart - engineer [preliminary sessions], loops [tape loops]
  • Darrell Thorp - engineer, technician [backed up by], other [catalogued by], engineer [engineered by]
  • Plank - technician [all our instruments maintained & rebuilt by], instrument builder [all our instruments are maintained & rebuilt by]

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