The beautiful contradiction of Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool

Radiohead's new album is a gorgeous marriage of past and present anxieties

Radiohead releases a new album.
(Image credit: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

In a 2009 issue of The Believer Magazine, two years after the release of In Rainbows, Thom Yorke disowned the entire album format on behalf of Radiohead, saying that another massive undertaking would "kill us."

Apparently the band has come to terms with their issues surrounding the traditional album. A Moon Shaped Pool, which dropped this weekend without ending the lives of any Radiohead members, is a beautiful contradiction, an album at once beholden to the past yet beguiled by the promises of the future.

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Greg Cwik

Greg Cwik is a writer and editor. His work appears at Vulture, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Believer, The AV Club, and other good places.