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We Should Appreciate The Smile While It’s Still Here
Dropping four projects in 20 months screams “Here for a good time, not a long time.”
Their initial boredom in the presence of rock legends juxtaposed with lyrics recalling the era when we got most of our offline social contact from applauding essential workers — “All the window balconies, they seem so flimsy as our / Friends step out to talk and wave and catch a piece of sun” — suggests it takes more razzle dazzle to turn our brains on than it used to. “Hectic” methodically transforms stately, spectral free jazz into a grungy coda that bears a shocking resemblance to a Smashing Pumpkins jam, with Yorke opening up the vibrato in his voice for the tuuuuuurnnnnn while Skinner slips into a Ginger Baker attack and Greenwood whizzes fuzzy staccato notes around like munitions. Dropping two albums and two live recordings in 20 months screams “Here for a good time, not a long time.” The lyrics that accompany stuttering guitars and cascading drums throughout the hazy “I Quit” seek “a new path out of the madness” as Yorke sweetly intones, “Wherever it goes.” It feels like a fractured mission statement.
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