A Moon Shaped Pool

Radiohead

A Moon Shaped Pool

Ninth studio album from the alt rock stalwarts, again produced by Nigel Godrich and released suddenly

ADM rating[?]

8.4

Label
XL Recordings
UK Release date
08/05/2016
US Release date
08/05/2016
  1. 10.0 |   Gig Soup

    The melodic power of these songs remain intact, but every moment here is reworked, built upon and chiselled to precision
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  2. 10.0 |   Pretty Much Amazing

    A Moon Shaped Pool is the best album we could expect from a rock outfit already into its third decade of existence, and a superb work from the last important band left in the universe
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  3. 10.0 |   DIY

    After years doing their own thing, it’s as if the members of Radiohead have locked limbs once more for a bigger cause
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  4. 10.0 |   No Ripcord

    It's mind-boggling how a band can keep up such a level of artistry after almost 30 years together. But by taking various elements from not only their collective past, but also the work they've done separately, Radiohead has created something wholly new and utterly entrancing
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  5. 9.5 |   The Line Of Best Fit

    Radiohead have excavated their most accomplished album in at least 15 years
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  6. 9.2 |   Paste Magazine

    With A Moon Shaped Pool, Radiohead have resumed the greatest winning streak in modern popular music. Not by flaunting any new tricks—just by delivering their normal quota of catharsis
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  7. 9.1 |   Consequence Of Sound

    Only now does it seem like Radiohead, a group too big to break up, could call it quits after pouring everything into their music, ending with a record of personal exhaust examined through leisurely means
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  8. 9.1 |   Pitchfork

    Radiohead move beyond the existential angst that made them music’s preeminent doomsayers, pursuing a more personal — and eternal — form of enlightenment
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  9. 9.0 |   Uncut

    There's a lighter, more hopeful bent to the musical settings, which perfectly balance the more dissonant leanings of The King Of Limbs with a sumptuousness and gentleness they've rarely sought since OK Computer. Print edition only

  10. 9.0 |   Under The Radar

    If The King of Limbs was, as the band have said, the sound of a band in transition, then this is the sound of a band at last at peace
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  11. 9.0 |   Rolling Stone

    Radiohead give us one of their most musically and emotionally arresting albums, full of flow-flying panic attacks and gorgeous orchestration
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  12. 9.0 |   Spin

    Radiohead — a quintet made up of the same five musicians through a long, accomplished career — truly feel like equals here, during what history may validate as one of the band’s finest hours; it’s an especially level playing field
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  13. 9.0 |   PopMatters

    A Moon Shaped Pool is gorgeously produced by the band’s usual collaborator, Nigel Godrich, and is as deep and thoroughly moving as one would expect from any Radiohead album
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  14. 9.0 |   musicOMH

    This is as compelling and coherent a collection as they have ever made. It’s a record that you can delve deep into and really inhabit; everything’s in its right place
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  15. 9.0 |   The 405

    A Moon Shaped Pool manages to do it over and over again with the feelings deepening rather than cheapening with each successive listen
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  16. 9.0 |   Slant Magazine

    Beneath its typically oblique surface, the album registers as Radiohead’s most revealing work to date
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  17. 9.0 |   Crack

    Radiohead are lost in their own wonderful world of sonics while things tumble around them, and this juxtaposition has made for a record that leaves A Moon Shaped Pool sat alongside some of their finest work
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  18. 8.9 |   Earbuddy

    It’s a great, somber, mellow Radiohead album that is either signaling the beginning of a revived band or one finally putting an end to a storied career
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  19. 8.5 |   Sputnik Music (staff)

    One of Radiohead's most personal efforts, but also an elusive one (7/10). This is not Radiohead's most experimental album, but it just might be their best (10/10), Average score
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  20. 8.4 |   AU Review

    It’s not their masterpiece – Radiohead already has more of those than some bands have albums – but it is a another pleasing musical shift from a group who has been truly and fearlessly original for two decades
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  21. 8.0 |   Clash

    What this all amounts to, in the end, is another fantastic Radiohead album
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  22. 8.0 |   State

    This is a Radiohead album, and as ever it’s deep, dark and beautiful. Restrained and wonderfully executed. Different to King of Limbs, but not better
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  23. 8.0 |   Beardfood

    It’s Radiohead at their depressingly best
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  24. 8.0 |   All Music

    This may not result in a radical shift in sound but rather a welcome change in tone: for the first time Radiohead feel comfortable in their own skin
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  25. 8.0 |   Mojo

    All told, another luxurious wallow in art and agitation. Print edition only

  26. 8.0 |   Q

    Here they are, once again in an orbit completely their own. Print edition only

  27. 8.0 |   Evening Standard

    They’ve never sounded quite so lavish since OK Computer or so affecting since The Bends
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  28. 8.0 |   The FT

    Deft string arrangements, textured electronic effects and folk-rock echoes create the impression of varied sensibilities brought together in seamless unity
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  29. 8.0 |   The Observer

    a‘The damage is done,’ Yorke sings, even more exhausted than usual
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  30. 8.0 |   The Skinny

    It’s the soundtrack to our most outlandish dreams, perhaps the exit music to the unmade film of our most romantic lives. If you're still to discover Radiohead, listen to this, for it's the perfect way in
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  31. 8.0 |   The List

    An essential piece of work with resonantly beautiful songs
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  32. 8.0 |   God Is In The TV

    A mix of familiarity and surprise, a technique that they can call their own
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  33. 8.0 |   Spectrum Culture

    A Moon Shaped Pool is not the best Radiohead album, but it is still striking in its intimacy and introspection
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  34. 8.0 |   The Guardian

    Sounds like Radiohead achieving something they’ve never achieved before, a quarter of a century into their career: long may their neuroses keep them in constant motion
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  35. 8.0 |   The Independent

    There are panic attacks and dead ends. But there is also a sense of lucidity, and clear, acoustic space. Yorke’s singing is unaffectedly lovely, and his words unusually direct
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  36. 8.0 |   Drowned In Sound

    There are things I wish were different about it, a couple of songs that don’t really stick in the head, but ultimately it's Radiohead being beautifully, maddeningly Radiohead, and I'm not going to argue with that
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  37. 8.0 |   NME

    An album of eerie, elusive beauty
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  38. 8.0 |   Exclaim

    A gorgeous, sweeping record whose best moments — the stirring string parts of "The Numbers," the gentle lilt of "Glass Eyes" and all six magnificent minutes of "Daydreaming" — find Radiohead at their dazzling best
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  39. 7.8 |   Resident Advisor

    Following shaky albums from both Yorke and Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool suggests that they were right to keep the faith
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  40. 7.5 |   A.V. Club

    The band has figured out how to translate its worldview into an album of tone poems, a record of songs ending in abrupt drops or trailed-off codas, as though each effort—by definition, you get the sense—must inevitably come up shor
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  41. 7.0 |   Tiny Mix Tapes

    The attempts at transcendence in Radiohead’s past make this album full with potential for retroactive catharsis due to its normality and lack, a sort of vernacular normcore presentation that delivers strands of Radiohead’s past in a utilitarian and casual manner
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  42. 6.0 |   NOW

    Whether or not you’re looking for a record with everything in its right place (sorry!) and no surprises (oh no!), Radiohead is as Radiohead does – what more could we ask of them?
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  43. 4.0 |   The Quietus

    Remember when Radiohead had fire in their bellies, blood in their mouths?
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Radiohead: A Moon Shaped Pool

  • Download full album for just £9.49
  • 1. Burn The Witch £0.89
  • 2. Daydreaming £0.89
  • 3. Decks Dark £0.89
  • 4. Desert Island Disk £0.89
  • 5. Ful Stop £0.89
  • 6. Glass Eyes £0.89
  • 7. Identikit £0.89
  • 8. The Numbers £0.89
  • 9. Present Tense £0.89
  • 10. Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief £0.89
  • 11. True Love Waits £0.89
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