Robots learn to love

Most of the mainstream buzz about In Rainbows concerns the unorthodox selling/leaking method that Radiohead employed for it, leaving the actual music on the band's first album in more than four years to fly under the radar. Though their online direct selling may start a revolution, the songs on Rainbows -- and they surprisingly are distinct songs -- show Radiohead growing out instead of surging forward.\nWithin the atmospheric haze of this album, the rhythmic interest keeps it from drifting to bed. From the drunken 5/4 stumble of the opener "15 Steps" to the most live-sounding percussion I've heard in a while on "Reckoner," the off-kilter, unexpected turns in the beat and meter work well with Thom Yorke's pleading vocals. Even on tracks without heavy percussion, the low rumble in the bass sets the melancholic tone.\nPerhaps the only revolution here is the album's romantic feel: strings soaring, lyrics verging on Motown ("You're all I need"), hidden melodies humming old pop songs at the end of "Reckoner." It seems that, at long last, these paranoid androids have learned to love, but love in the kind of duplicitous frozen way that only Yorke's wail can muster.\nThose hoping for a return to OK Computer and Pablo Honey will be disappointed, but the rock-out rages of the past resurface in places such as the guitar fuzz of "Bodysnatchers" and the raucous high-hat on "Jigsaw Falling Into Place." We don't see a new Radiohead; instead, we get a hybrid mix of all the old Radioheads, from the folksy "Nude" to the electro-rock "15 Steps."\nIn Rainbows, then, rescues otherwise colorless lyrics ("I don't want to be your friend / I just want to be your lover") with its resonance, creating a true wall of sound, hitting at every register to fully envelop the listener in eerie rapture, reminding us after four years why Radiohead was so great in the first place.