What Radiohead did with The Bends was create, in twelve carefully-crafted, brilliantly left-of-centre songs, a document which perfectly captures the (post)modern individual’s alienation in contemporary society. Musically a mix of indie-rock anthems, acoustic ballads, atmospherically melodic meanderings, and a couple of interesting, almost Pixies-esque rockers, the album is given an underlying coherency by Thom Yorke’s haunting vocal delivery – which switches effortlessly from the angelic to something reminiscent of Munch’s painting "The Scream" – and the distinctive musical and lyrical sensibilities of the band.
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... it’s impossible not to reflect on the appropriateness of this album’s synthesis of the timeless and the timely - for The Bends is a classic, and destined to endure. - 8/6/02
Really, The Bends is so much a part of my history, musical and otherwise, that what I wrote back then, in June 2002, still goes just as well to describing how I respond to it and what it means to me; songs like "Fake Plastic Trees", "Black Star" and "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" have been deeply embedded in the soundtrack to everything I've done for seemingly as far as I can remember (although really only since say '97 or '98 or thereabouts - plenty long enough in any event) and have lost little of their power to pull at me even today. To a large extent, The Bends is nowadays an album from the past for me - but that's very far from meaning that I've left it behind.
