iTunes

Opening the iTunes Store.If iTunes doesn't open, click the iTunes application icon in your Dock or on your Windows desktop.
iTunes

iTunes is the world's easiest way to organize and add to your digital media collection.

We are unable to find iTunes on your computer. To preview and buy music from The King of Limbs by Radiohead, download iTunes now.

Already have iTunes? Click I Have iTunes to open it now.

I Have iTunes Free Download
iTunes for Mac + PC

The King of Limbs

Radiohead

View More By This Artist

Open iTunes to preview, buy, and download music.

iTunes Review

As the most beloved art-rock band in the world, Radiohead are always looking for ways to warp their sound beyond the breaking point. Here, singer Thom Yorke is still in the mode of his solo album, The Eraser. As he sings in a beautifully stationary position, the group works around him, beginning slightly ahead of him with “Bloom,” a repetitive tone poem whose two piano notes play like a warning siren as the band finds new landscapes to paint. What constitutes the first “side” of this album is agitated and striking, a push and pull of subtle and overt proportions. “Morning Mr. Magpie” works out a measured funk and “Feral” dances around itself. “Side Two” begins the slowdown. “Lotus Flower” still has a few galvanizing moments, but “Codex” is a piano ballad of pure, tranquil bliss. “Give Up the Ghost” is a haunted, funhouse mirror version of the blues. “Separator” is a perfect ending, a piece of swelling pop where Yorke and group work together in peculiar harmony.

Customer Reviews

The Amnesiac to In Rainbows

I feel this album will always be compared to In Rainbows in the way the way that any other follow up album to a a masterpiece is. In my opinion this is similar to how Amnesiac followed up Kid A. It provided many of the great elements which made its predecessor brilliant while also experimenting with new sounds and territories. The second half of this album displays much of the same sort of sounds that In Rainbows held in its quieter moments. The first half was the most experimental for Radiohead. Experimenting with new trends and styles in electronic music such as jittering beats and rolling bass, The King of Limbs displays a lot of Radiohead's new interest in Dubstep electronic that has risen to prominence in the past few years since In Rainbows was released. A solid listen all the way through, it will reveal itself over time to you if you are patient and allow yourself to dissect the song structures for new layers. Key tracks are Bloom, Lotus Flower, Little By Little, and Giving Up the Ghost.

For Dedicated Fans Only

"The King of Limbs" will surely go down in Radiohead history as THE album that divides the fan camp. Either you love it BECAUSE it's Radiohead or you hate it because it doesn't sound like Radiohead. I'm a little on the fence in this regard as I hear a heck of a lot of Thom Yorke's "The Eraser" solo album in it, but also perhaps some dark b-sides from the long-gone "Kid A/Amnesiac" era.

I doubt highly that the few years that have spanned "IN RAINBOWS'" release and the appearance of "The King of Limbs" were wasted. There's a lot of good things going for Radiohead right now. They understand their fan base and continue to stick to what works while still being experimental enough to not get "boring." They're darlings in the music world who can apparently do no wrong, yet can still receive constructive feedback when more militant fans and critics can't help but look way, way back at "OK Computer" as some neverending launch pad for further Radiohead material. (Never liked that album, myself.)

I think "The King of Limbs" is a step forward to something bigger and better. The album is rich in deep textures and otherworldly Yorke-ish vocals. It just doesn't seem complete. ...as if there's more to come.

I can't imagine non-Radiohead fans getting into this album, though curious ears familiar with dark, ambient soundscapes and drum machines may find it interesting. "Lotus Flower" sounds like a collaboration between Yorke and Massive Attack, a group known for its own grasp on trippy, strange atmospheric sounds. I'd suggest new listeners picking up "IN RAINBOWS" or even "Hail to the Thief" as starting points. "OK Computer" may be the band's bread and butter, but that was before they truly found their niche, in my opinion.

Good album, this is, yet polarizing for understandable reasons. Give it a year. See what happens then.

They're back.

Enough said.

Let's just hope the rumors are true about The King Of Limbs part II.

I think the only thing I wish this could have been better was I wish it was longer of course! and I wish their was more full band tracks! I'm in love with their abstract, experimental sounds they always do but what about more tracks that were like "In Rainbows"??? That's pretty much it. A FANTASTIC album overall.

Biography

Formed: 1989 in Oxford, England

Genre: Alternative

Years Active: '90s, '00s, '10s

Radiohead were one of the few alternative bands of the early '90s to draw heavily from the grandiose arena rock that characterized U2's early albums. But the band internalized that epic sweep, turning it inside out to tell tortured, twisted tales of angst and alienation. Vocalist Thom Yorke's pained lyrics were brought to life by the group's three-guitar attack, which relied on texture — borrowing as much from My Bloody Valentine and Pink Floyd as R.E.M. and Pixies — instead of virtuosity....
Full Bio

Top Albums and Songs By Radiohead

Listeners Also Bought

Become a fan of the iTunes and App Store pages on Facebook for exclusive offers, the inside scoop on new apps and more.