Spin gives Radiohead's The Bends five out of ten

Spin gives The Bends, out in America on Capitol since 4 April), five out of ten in its July 1995 issue. Its critic, Chuck Eddy, hears the power chords of “Just” as lifted from “Smells Like Nirvana”, Weird Al Yankovic's Nirvana parody. Eddy would have been happy with ten more songs like “Creep”, a single he admits he dismissed at first and then fell for.

What he got instead, he says, is a band afraid of being pigeonholed in the one style it does well. He puts The Bends beside the Spin Doctors' last album as that kind of follow-up.

“Just” and “My Iron Lung”, which he calls a late-Beatles pastiche with a noisy surprise in it, come closest to “Creep”. He likes the climbing guitar of “Black Star”, which puts him in mind of Tom Scholz of Boston. The rest reminds Eddy of Suede trying to sound like Sparks and ending up like U2, or of Smashing Pumpkins. His verdict is too much mumbled nonsense and not enough plain feeling.