A Moon Shaped Pool [CD]

This is my favorite Radiohead album. Beautiful production and great songwriting. A must have for any fan!

This is a great Radiohead cd. I would recommend to anyone who loves alternative music

Radiohead does it again. Compared to everything else out there, Thom Yorke and Co. produce something of incredible harmonic nuance, sensuousness, progression, and meaning. Not a collection of songs where you skip around to find your favorite track, maybe two, instead the album as a whole is a continuous saga of elevated complexity and beauty that builds and winds, ducks and swerves, following its own logical journey through crafted fields and valleys. None of the songs here are quite as catchy and memorable as the best on In Rainbows, but none of them ever stoop to the plodding and sleepiness of the least successful songs on that album, making A Moon Shaped Pool a stunning achievement overall. (And, for further comparison, this is much more in the vein of the extended acoustic-instrument progressions found on In Rainbows than it is of the bleepier experimentalism of other albums - and definitely not the primitive grunge Radiohead only ever did in their early music.)

This is Radiohead's 9th full length album and they are starting to show their age. Not that that's a bad thing. This is their mellowest album with nothing resembling a traditional rock song in the track listing, but it's atmospheric piano tinklings, acoustic guitar finger-pickings and orchestral flourishes add up to one of the most immersive listening experiences from a band that is showing more confidence as it ages. Standout tracks include Burn the WItch, Daydreaming, Identikit and Ful Stop. It closes with a newly-recorded sparse version of a long-time fan favorite, True Love Waits, that feels more heart-breakingly beautiful with its new arrangement.

This album distinguishes itself from previous Radiohead albums in that it's composed entirely of mid-tempo or slower songs - Thom's voice rarely, if ever, sounds ragged or strained. It's also heavily orchestrated. Because of this, one could easily place it in the ambient, post-rock genre. That said, A Moon Shaped Pool could be considered Radiohead's most overtly beautiful album ever. The electronic flourishes and post-processing effects that mark their previous work can be found here; with definite shades of Kid A, however with a lighter touch making the album much more accessible Kid A.

I'm liking this album more than Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief, and In Rainbows. I'm not sure this album has any highs as high as those have, but there aren't any lows - no track that I dislike so much that I'm constantly skipping over it like I did with those albums. Happy to hear less of the techno beat that has been so prevalent (and in some cases ruined tracks) on the last few albums. Present Tense, while not a great track in my opinion, does remind me of some of Ok Computer's eeiry melodies and that's a good thing. Fans of old, 1990s-era Radiohead should be pleased.

I've always been a Radiohead fan and have all their CDs. The last couple were kinda "meh" for me. They were good, just didn't grab me as much. Hard to top OK Computer or Kid A, right? This one got my attention and I will be listening to it on a regular basis. More innovative all the way around. Great production and composition. If you already like Radiohead, you'll love this one for sure.

This review is very biased as I think that Radiohead is the best band out there right now, but I really really liked this album. This is a band that has left behind the trappings of rock music, electronic music and crafted an album that is timeless in its beauty and full of emotion. It's very laid back, has haunting melodies and lush orchestration - A perfect listen for a somber evening.