Bleep

Following on from their debut release Pablo Honey, The Bends marked Radiohead’s steps towards reinvention as one of the premier acts in alternative and art rock. Their second album germinated in the wake of unexpected and, in the band’s eyes, untoward success, and the pressure to keep the buzz up almost led to their demise. The Bends is as much a retaliation against the corporate expectations for a band certified platinum as it is a transitional record between their rock origins and later experimental detours.

Moving out of his self-critical incarceration, Thom Yorke explored more abstract forms in his lyrics, building upon a thoughtful collective perspective; his angsty falsetto set to a backdrop of the kind of determined guitar strumming that would set off a myriad of copycats. “You can break all the rules”, he sings on ‘Planet Telex’, beginning to tease out alternate structures as guitars and pianos waver while diving under metres of oceanic pressure. And while there are some proper rock and roll cuts present (the title track among them), Radiohead were doing just that: breaking the rules of the Britpop era, eschewing the business of hit singles, and conveying imagery that went so often untapped in the mid 90s music landscape.

Amidst vulnerable and impassioned performances, Yorke was crystallising his fragile falsetto, with ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ hinting at the cathartic, orchestral highs the band would continue to improve upon in tracks like ‘Exit Music (For a Film)’. As he sings “the scratch” on ‘My Iron Lung’, a snarling guitar answers, rubbing against the angularly filtered riffs and groovy yet sinisterly chugging bassline, while ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’ builds intrigue as it layers cyclical guitar plucks, slowly intensifying drums, and bursts of newly explored synths that would soon claim the centrepieces of some of their most universally acclaimed works.

The Bends set up many evolutions for Radiohead, but still contains timeless classics that defined a decade.