With the unmistakable sound of an axe amp being switched on, closely followed by some nonchalant test strums, the opener of Radiohead's Hail To The Thief LP declared the Oxford superstars had allowed guitars to infiltrate their peculiar brand of musical melancholia once again.
An eerie, sinister set of vocal echoes and guitar scratches at the start soon gives way to the sort of electric guitar wigout that fans from OK Computer and, more particularly, The Bends should find raises the merest hint of a smile. And when Thom's voice, here at its most impressive, changes from harmonising melodies to screaming over a wash of guitar screeching, you know this is Radiohead with ProTools on the backburner and passion plugged back in.
That 2+2=5 is also the most commercially viable Radiohead single for quite some time is merely incidental. The single is available in two CD formats, DVD and 12". Amongst the highlights are FourTet's remix of Scatterbrain on CD2.
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