TT REVIEW

Rob Dand

I told our Dear Editor Dom that I’d only do a ‘Talking Points’ blog after that embarrassment of a football match if I could just review my favourite Radiohead records instead. I wasn’t joking. Bon appétit.

OK COMPUTER

Few bands (maybe no bands) quite captured the malaise of pre-millennial angst as well as Radiohead did on OK Computer. Their landmark 1997 release crackles upon the kindling of social alienation, its foreboding tone rooted in a distrust of technological advancement and nefarious hyper-corporate media practices. It’s sometimes literally right there in the text, as in ‘Paranoid Android’, and sometimes in more of a sonic sense, like the disconcerting slow burn of ‘Exit Music (For a Film)’. Coming after the massive critical and commercial success of second album ‘The Bends’, ‘OK Computer’ was a huge creative risk taken by a band whose record label would very much have preferred them to just write another big guitar record, thank you very much. Nearly 30 years and 10 million copies later, it turns out the band knew what they were doing. This record is still as brave and beautiful as it ever was.

Jimmy Ball, too, spoke of bravery in his post-match comments at Farnham Town this week. I can’t imagine him commandeering the aux cable on the team bus to subject his squad to the twinkling ‘Let Down’ on the way home, but that song’s title sums up how a lot of us felt heading back down the A303 on Monday, after a lacklustre and frankly at times boring performance. The only hardware worthy of distrust in Surrey was the host’s malfunctioning scoreboard, and truth be told there was no advancement of a technological or even a literal kind for much of the first period. A reasonably steady but unambitious half yielded a handful of chances, but the Gulls continued to look uncomfortable in various formations possibly pulled out of a hat, and struggled to wear down a team who were simply capable of defending well as a unit. New signing Jacob Beaumont-Clark looked lively on the right wing and grew into the game, even if he did spend much of the half acting as Jordan Young’s shadow. He may well have been signed to eventually be just that. As a former academy player at both Manchester United and Everton, he obviously has talent and a good touch, but will need time to adjust to men’s football.

The second half saw patience first morph into frustration, and then into bitterness, with the players noticeably irritated by each other’s poor control, slow processing speed and lack of support. An arms-folded YouTube summary from senior players offering a pretty obvious assessment of events has done little to distill the impression that everybody secretly hates each other and would rather be literally anywhere else – even Crawley.

IN RAINBOWS

Back to Radiohead – still not joking.

2007’s ‘In Rainbows’ came almost out of nowhere, released with little more than a week’s notice. I think a lot of people heard lead single ‘Jigsaw Falling Into Place’ and assumed that the guitars were back – and they were, kind of – but so too was the familiar glitchy, unsettling atmosphere that the band had been crafting for over a decade already. The fluttery ’15 Step’ kicks things off in relatively upbeat fashion (for Radiohead), before the record concludes with the sparse piano-led ‘Videotape’, a feel-good banger about the end of a person’s life, and the self-reflection and impending judgement that might come with that moment in front of the pearly gates.

Jimmy Ball’s jigsaw certainly hasn’t quite yet fallen into place, as he searches for both his best formation and his best eleven. The closing of the EFL transfer window may bring with it some clarity on the future of some key individuals, at the obvious expense of squad depth, but perhaps this will give the manager a chance to salvage his summer recruitment record – which has so far proven to be largely uninspiring, with the exception of Jake Wannell who should be given the captain’s armband immediately.

The mournful track ‘Nude’ bleakly proclaimed “Don’t get any big ideas/They’re not going to happen”, and to be honest, no statement could be more true about the recent history of Torquay United. Our big dream of one day being allowed to travel beyond the M4 for a football match looks to be quite far away at this point, and certainly no closer after this hollow start to the season. It’s difficult to image a future where the Gulls don’t eventually pull themselves away from the wrong end of the table, but we’ve started seasons sluggishly before and rarely managed to turn things around sufficiently enough to avoid our own periods of self-reflection and wondering what might have been. Hopefully those pearly gates don’t beckon for the club just yet, either.

A MOON SHAPED POOL

My stepdaughter once listened to this record with me when it was first released, and her frank conclusion was that “it’s making me feel sad and alone”. Needless to say, I switched if off fairly shortly after, recognising that a future as a Radiohead fan may not be on the cards for her. Despite her glowing review, ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ actually offered a comparatively laid-back and ethereal listening experience in places. Highlights for me included the throbbing bass of ‘Burn the Witch’, the meandering ‘Daydreaming’ and the eerie pulse of ‘Ful Stop’ (that’s not a typo, Dom), as well as the better-late-than-never committal to record of fan favourite ‘True Love Waits’ over 20 years after its live debut.

Toby Savin and Tyler Hill could be accused of ‘Daydreaming’ during the passage of play that led to the first Farnham goal. We don’t know whether there was a shout from the goalkeeper, but his body language suggested he trusted Hill to head the innocuous looking ball well clear, rather than duck at the last second and allow it to drop perfectly into the corner of his net. You’re at Torquay United, Toby, you can’t trust anyone mate. By contrast, the Farnham goalkeeper was about 8 foot tall, could be seen from space, and claimed every high ball that floated his way. Savin has already shown that he is capable of a decent save or two, but currently looks about as commanding as a quiche. Is it a confidence issue? Has he not been left in the oven long enough? Who knows.

Fact of the week: Toby Savin was 15 when ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ came out. It made me feel old to learn that, so I thought I’d burden you with it as well, if indeed you are still reading.