There is very little left to say about In Rainbows by Radiohead, a surprise release by one of the biggest bands in the world, with its unusual delivery and pricing methodology. I paid £6 for my download of the 10 track album on the premise that if I like the album, I’d probably be happy to drop the £8 or £10 for the CD package when it finally gets released…personally this seems like a pretty good model - especially if it allows the music to reach the market quicker and stops the inevitable leaks that mean the album ends up being downloaded for free from the pirate sites.

However - there is still an album by Radiohead fresh onto the market - and this significant event for music fans deserves some commentary on the ACTUAL MUSIC.

In Rainbows is a more accessible album than Hail to the Thief, still with the edgy, stripped down feel of its predecessor it manages to pack some actual song structure into the tracks and deliver something that is much closer to OK Computer than anything they’ve done in between.

There are some superb songs on this - some of which have been around as live tracks (and subsequently in poor copies all over the internet), but now we have pristine 160kbps copies to listen to. Stand out tracks for me are Reckoner - with its haunting strings, and ‘All I need’ with its gorgeous piano and glockenspiel sounds, allied with stark vocals from Yorke.

The drums throughout the tracks are outstanding - and the string section bought into build the tracks up has been used well across the album.

Its a Radiohead album - so it is always going to be good - but this is amongst the best they’ve done for many years. As an experiment in changing the economics of music, it probably won;t do much - but as an exercise in demonstrating what raw talent can do in a music studio, this is the real shit.