NME's James Oldham gives Hail to the Thief 7 out of 10

James Oldham reviews Hail to the Thief in this week's NME, six weeks before it comes out, and gives it 7 out of 10. He calls “Sit Down. Stand Up.” and “There There” pedestrian at best, and cannot see why “There There” was picked as the first single.

Before NME's first hearing, Oldham writes, the talk was of a return to The Bends and OK Computer, which he calls wishful thinking. The album carries on from Kid A and Amnesiac, and leaves Radiohead stuck between experiment and tradition. Set beside The Strokes and The White Stripes, they seem to him cumbersome. At 14 tracks and almost an hour it is too long, and he would have dropped “Backdrifts” and “The Gloaming”.

Jonny Greenwood's guitar on “2 + 2 = 5” and “Scatterbrain” wins praise, and so does the fuzz bass of “Myxomatosis”. But the best of the record, for Oldham, is its personal songs, “I Will”, “A Wolf at the Door” and the piano ballad “Sail to the Moon”, which he names the outstanding track.