Hail to the Thief (2003)
Hail to the Thief is a 2003 alternative rock album by Radiohead.
Radiohead's sixth album arrives edgier and faster than the studio-bound records before it. After the electronic drift of Kid A and Amnesiac, the band folded those textures back into guitars, drums, and Thom Yorke's fraught vocals, cutting most of it live across a few weeks in Los Angeles. The songs carry a current of dread about power and paranoia, from the coiled anger of "2+2=5" to the tribal pulse of "There There" and the lullaby unease of "Sail to the Moon." Fourteen tracks, restless and sprawling, closing the band's long run under EMI.
Quick answers
What is Hail to the Thief about?
Radiohead's sixth album arrives edgier and faster than the studio-bound records before it. After the electronic drift of Kid A and Amnesiac, the band folded those textures back into guitars, drums, and Thom Yorke's fraught vocals, cutting most of it live across a few weeks in Los Angeles. The songs carry a current of dread about power and paranoia, from the coiled anger of "2+2=5" to the tribal pulse of "There There" and the lullaby unease of "Sail to the Moon." Fourteen tracks, restless and sprawling, closing the band's long run under EMI.
When was Hail to the Thief released?
Hail to the Thief was released in 2003.
Who made Hail to the Thief?
Hail to the Thief is by Radiohead.
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Explore Hail to the Thief guides
A few thoughts on Hail to the Thief
Fans drawn to its political dread and studio experiment should watch Children of Men, Alfonso Cuaron's film of surveillance-state despair scored with a similar unease. The paranoid electronics pair with the video game Inside, a wordless dystopia of conformity and control. For more Yorke, the OK Computer era sits close by.
The rest of Radiohead's catalog around Kid A and Amnesiac
Hail to the Thief folds Kid A and Amnesiac's electronic drift back into guitars and live drums, closing out a run that keeps circling the same restless band. Kid A, Amnesiac, The Bends and Pablo Honey trace that same arc from jangly guitar rock through studio experiments, the sound of one group refusing to repeat itself.
Other 2000s art carrying the same paranoid unease
The dread running through Hail to the Thief is tied to the anxious politics of its moment, and that same unease carries through these six. Nevermind, A Rush of Blood to the Head, Meteora, Lateralus, Inside and Children of Men all carry a comparable disquiet, whether in a hook, a game's silence or a film's grey skies.