- Critic Score
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There's something for everyone here. [Jul 2003, p.120]
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100It feels more like a band playingto a multitude of strengths than the formal wrestling of Kid A. [Jul 2003, p.103]
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93For its moments of gravity and excellence, Hail to the Thief is an arrow pointing toward the clearly darker, more frenetic territory the band have up to now only poked at curiously.
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93From a technical standpoint, it's astounding.... But from a purely aesthetic standpoint, it's just downright unmusical. [#5, p.86]
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91If you haven't already pledged your allegiance to Radiohead, this isn't gonna turn you.
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90It's startling that a commercial rock band could sound this blood-and-oxygen vital, this meaningful and mighty six albums into their career.
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90For all its muddied textures and sideways lurches, it is a magnificently engaging and expansive work. [Jul 2003, p.112]
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90The band seems more comfortable in the studio than ever. [Aug 2003, p.88]
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Hail lacks the overriding musical, thematic or experimental coherence of the band's post-Pablo Honey work. But it is a strong collection of discrete tracks, like an unreleased B-sides collection finally seeing the light of day.
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90An incredible album from a band that continues to redefine its boundaries.
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Hail to the Thief is overloaded with miraculous sounds.
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Radiohead effectively split the difference between its best-known incarnations on Hail To The Thief, which brings the group's Consecutive Great Albums total to a remarkable five.
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80Coheres as well as anything else in their canon. [Jun 2003, p.90]
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Despite the fact that it seems more like a bunch of songs on a disc than a singular body, its impact is substantial.
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Despite the anger and bitterness, Hail to the Thief is more musically inviting than Radiohead's last two outings.
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80The biggest problem with Hail to The Thief is its lack of surprise.
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This is truly an album that will stay with you once you’ve let it work its way in.
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Of course it's political, and of course it continues to merge electronic experimentation with more familiar rock structures; but it employs all those debate-igniting props simply to further the band's more pressing agenda: to tirelessly explore beauty's terrible fragility.
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80Like all of the band’s best work, Thief requires more than a few listens to fully appreciate, but those who stick around will be richly rewarded.
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That's not to say there's not some exceptional music on this record, it's just once again the impact of the best moments is dulled by the inclusion of some indifferent electronic compositions.
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70As admirable as Radiohead's quest ongoing quest to ignore expectations, tear up the manual and proudly rebel against the limitations of 4/4 time seems, some of Hail To The Thief comes dangerously close to being all experimentalism and precious little substance. [Jul 2003, p.98]
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60Sprawling, overwrought, unkempt rock music.
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60The album seems resigned, defeated, passive -- like an hour-long sigh. [#17, p.130]
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60Hail to the Thief's big drawback has less to do with its similarity to its predecessor than the sense that Radiohead's famed gloominess is becoming self-parodic.
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The new songs have attitude, but they sound like outtakes from 2000's classic Kid A and 2001's lesser Amnesiac.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 180 out of 198
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Mixed: 10 out of 198
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Negative: 8 out of 198
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ReidM10
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MarcR10
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