Pitchfork give Hail to the Thief 9.3

Chris Ott's long Pitchfork review of Hail to the Thief, posted on the day of its American release, scores it 9.3. He ranks Radiohead with U2, Pink Floyd and Queen. He suggests they might have outgrown the Beatles had the success of “Creep” not stirred an Oxford guilt complex, citing Thom Yorke's complaint in Meeting People Is Easy that the English take any success as proof of cheating.

The review ties the new record to an assault Yorke suffered one night in 2000 in his home town, likening him to Johnny in Mike Leigh's Naked, and argues that it turned him towards more immediate, emotionally direct subjects. The album is less taken up with third world debt and global conspiracy than its title led Ott to fear.

He does not take it as a new departure, or as the OK Computer 2 Yorke has called it in the press. He calls it a holding pattern, and reckons that whatever Radiohead make from now on will sound like Radiohead.

For Ott, “Sail to the Moon” is rebuilt from “Pyramid Song”, “How to Disappear Completely” and “The Tourist”. The one real low point is “Where I End and You Begin”, which apart from the vocal he calls a U2 song.

The high points are “Myxomatosis” and “A Wolf at the Door”, the closer, where Yorke deals most openly with the attack. For all his doubts, Ott ends by calling the record a bridge, with a view most listeners will treasure for a long time.