Radiohead - The Bends (1995), 7/10

A greatly matured follow up and pivot in sound after Pablo Honey, an album that has plenty to offer despite the critical backlash. The Bends, in comparison, certainly has hooks galore and a newfound maturity in sound and theme. The most successful single tracks here are certainly great in their own fashion, but there is nuance hiding in the fringe of the rest which foreshadows the raw potential lurking within the band. As an opener, "Planet Telex" is a great representation of their new blending of delicacy and distortion, it is ripe with deeply satisfying guitar work and dynamics. Dynamics is certainly the name of the game in plenty of these songs, and will continue to be a strength for Radiohead for years to come, especially further along in their career during In Rainbows and A Moon Shaped Pool. "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" is among the best when it comes to "picture perfect" closing tracks. Still, the peripheries of pop music more often than not offer more than its central players, and while The Bends has plenty to offer, it has begun to lose its timeless sheen and textural allure, as has much of Radiohead’s music. Tracks like “High and Dry” or “My Iron Lung”, while satisfying as radio singles, do not stand the test of time as well as their later experiments during the Kid A sessions. These songs utilize a nice blend of noise along with the band’s traditional composition style, but do not create as great an effect as on their proceeding album, or in their later works. “Fake Plastic Trees”, “(Nice Dream)”, “Bullet Proof..I Wish I Was” and “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” do a better job of holding onto a genuinely depressive tone that give the tracks more of an individual identity, but many of the rest blend together into a muddled obscurity. As a pop album, The Bends has its hits and memorable choruses, yet it exists as a stepping stone for the band’s evolution rather than as one of their more artistically successful projects.