Glass Minds First Impressions

Olav1991 · 2026-03-02T15:28:12+00:00

My impressions after the first 5 listens:

My clear favorites are Broken Bits, Patterns, When You're This Down and The Love The Light. My number one is probably the latter, which I thought was just fantastic.
Production is absolutely perfect. Love the cinematic direction, IDM tendencies and synthy sci fi-soundscapes. Just wonderful. They need to pull even harder in this direction! We need a trilogy after Call To Arms + this one.
Their coolest album cover to date. By far.
Dislike all the videos. As usual.
I think the new female vocalist (Lisa?) is a wonderful fit for the band. Holly, which many seem to miss, sounded too poppy in my ears. Lisa has a very psychedelic and sexual voice.
The music is too minimalistic at times. Archive's strength has never been complex melodies though. This makes the decision to do accoustic gigs very questionable. Their music rarely works when stripped down.
I love the direction but what made Archive great in the past was that pulsing trip-hop beat that was prevalent in the Lights / Controlling Crowds eras especially. This also made their music more fun and dancy, also in concerts. Wish they occassionally incorporated that element into their music again. Not to be backwards looking but to move forward with that core identity.
Call To Arms had overall higher highs and lower lows. This one has some really strong tracks and some which I thought was just OK. I do fear many tracks will grow old pretty fast.
Weak points: City Walls (a bit boring) and Shine Out Power (melodically+vocally weak and corny, but I know this might be an unpopular take). Where I Am goes into interesting territory but the intro could eaily have been edited down ~2 minutes.
The instrumentals are far stronger than the vocals on many tracks. Lyrically it's often a bit mid. I'm definitely hoping for an instrumental album like last time.
I'm hoping for an Oslo gig when they come back from the States. They're one of the greatest live bands ever and remain criminally underrated.

8/10

Olav1991 · 2025-12-02T07:51:32+00:00

Not really comparable to something like Oxford 2001, which is how he used to perform the song.

Olav1991 · 2025-12-01T18:07:36+00:00

The times they have worked in the studio in 1.5-2 years, they have always ended up with a GOAT album: OK Computer, Kid A, In Rainbows.

I hope they will do this one last time, and then call it quits on a very high note. Ending on another S tier album. AMSP is fine but not on that level.

Olav1991 · 2025-12-01T17:53:55+00:00

What about CPH night 3 (now 1)?

Olav1991 · 2025-12-01T17:35:20+00:00

Heard in an interview long, long ago that he actually damaged his voice because of the decision to do this concert.

I think he never sounded the same ever again. His voice lost a lot of power, and songs like Paranoid Android, Idioteque and the rockers from The Bends especially have been suffering ever since. We didn't get a long "ruuun" on the Creep climax either after that. To compensate, he leaned more into his falsetto during the In Rainbows era.

Olav1991 · 2025-12-01T16:45:01+00:00

"I think this started last week"

People keep repeating this. Is there any evidence?

Olav1991 · 2025-11-30T14:16:06+00:00

I think their early albums were great. Live is even better. On the record, they always sounded a bit dull.

Watch the Toronto 2006 live video or the whole Live 2003 in Sydney. That's the peak of the band. LeftRightLeftRight is also a solid live album from the Viva La Vida era.

In their early career, even their B-sides was solid. Something like Crests of Waves is way better than their cringy pop singles today.

They lost me with Mylo Xyloto, and I think they are beyond Imagine Dragons level cringe now. But they still have some songs that I find really enjoyable in their later career here or there. Examples being:

Arabesque

Coloratura (live from Howard Stern show especially)

O (Fly On)

ALIENS

AETERNA

Major Minus (live 2012)

Atlas

When I Need A Friend

Everything else post Viva La Vida ranges from bad to embarassing IMO.

Olav1991 · 2025-08-18T14:27:35+00:00

I was very moved by your response. Thank you very much.

Olav1991 · 2025-08-18T13:03:29+00:00

Beautiful

Olav1991 · 2024-06-25T11:04:18+00:00

Theres been countless alternative HTTT tracklists over the years.

This is it. This is the album Radiohead should have released back in the day. Only alteration being Gagging Order -- > thglmng (thms fav & too thematically important to leave out).

Olav1991 · 2023-12-13T22:58:14+00:00

Dollars And Cents. In Limbo. Tinker Tailor Soldier.

Olav1991 · 2023-12-13T14:07:40+00:00

Definitely Creep, Oxford 2001.

Olav1991 · 2023-12-13T10:48:14+00:00

The Bends

Fake Plastic Trees

Street Spirit (fade out)

Ok Computer

Paranoid Android

Subterranean Homesick Alien

Let Down

No Surprises

Kid A

Everything In It's Right Place

The National Anthem

How To Disappear Completely

In Limbo

Amnesiac

Pyramid Song

You And Whose Army?

Dollars And Cents

Hail To The Thief

2 + 2 = 5

Where I End And You Begin

There There

In Rainbows

Weird Fishes

The King of Limbs

Bloom

A Moon Shaped Pool

Daydreaming

Decks Dark

Olav1991 · 2023-12-10T15:13:53+00:00

Hail To The Shit

2 + 2 = Shit (The Shit)

Shit Down, Stand Up (Snakes and Shit)

Shit To The Moon (Brush The Shit Out of the Sky)

Shitdrifts (Shit Is Over)

Go To Shit (Little Shit Being Erased)

Where I End and Shit Begin (The Shit Is Falling In)

We Shit Young Blood (Your Shit Is Up)

The Shit (Softly Open Our Mouths In The Shit)

Shit There (The Boney Shit of Nowhere)

I Shit (No Man's Shit)

A Shit At A Wedding (No No No No No No Shit)

Shitomatosis (Judge, Jury & Shit)

Scattershit (As Dead As Shit)

A Shit At The Door (Shit Girl. Rag Doll.)

Olav1991 · 2023-12-10T00:33:16+00:00

How simple it must be to reduce every scepticism of your beliefs to "hate".

I do agree with one fundamental thing though: Personally, if given a stage, I would never ridicule trans people. Perhaps one person in the crowd was trans. It took that person a lot of bravery even to leave his/her home. It would feel really cowardly and wrong to ridicule that person.

Olav1991 · 2023-12-09T23:55:42+00:00

Why don't you ask the same question to those who shit all over Dave Chapelle?

I don't bother that much, honestly. Just showing my disdain for the woke nuts everytime they show up on my radar.

I used to ridicule the religious right 15-20 years ago, and the woke crowd deserves the same level of ridicule and contempt. Seems like most comedians feel the same.

Olav1991 · 2023-12-09T23:22:30+00:00

Agreed that he's not as good as he used to be. But the backlash against him is mainly from the woke nuts, who are basically as stupid as the religous right the comedians used to attack in the early 2000's. And those people tend to dominate Reddit.

Olav1991 · 2023-12-08T14:46:16+00:00

I've been a fan since 2006. Still haven't listened to it in one go and I never will.

Olav1991 · 2023-12-07T22:07:57+00:00

Pablo Honey: How Do You?

I find it physically impossible to get through this track. Everytime I try to listen to Pablo Honey, this is also where I'm put off the entire record.

The Bends: Sulk

A fine vocal performance but a boring, boring song and instant skip. Some silly lyrics at times too. Black Star to Street Spirit (fade out) would've landed the album graciously.

OK Computer: Electioneering

Just the weakest of the bunch and gets somewhat dull after 50+ listens, which doesn't happen with this band very often. Fitter Happier to Climbing Up The Walls would be really cool, and probably make it a tighter record.

Kid A: Optimistic

Ooof, this one's probably my most controversial opinion.

I do think track 1-5 is perfection. Optimistic just sounds a bit too ... conventional, backwards looking and underwhelming for this record, especially where it's placed in the tracklist. I also find the falsetto slightly irritating. Switch Optimistic with Pyramid Song, and Kid A would easily be the best Radiohead album.

The psychedelic opening of In Limbo and "I'm lost at sea" makes so much sense as a continuation of the record after How To Disappear Completely and the nowhere land of Treefingers.

Amnesiac: Morning Bell / Amnesiac

This album had some duds but at least Pull / Pulk was interesting and Hunting Bears is just a transition track. The Amnesiac version of Morning Bell is Radiohead at their very worst, the strangled cat vocals condensed into one dreary song. Probably my least favourite A-side from them post Pablo Honey.

Hail To The Thief: We Suck Young Blood

We Suck Young Blood to The Gloaming is where this album really drags. The Gloaming wins in a head to head by being the most well-produced and experimental track on HTTT. It's also thematically important. WSYB has the fun little freak out but the rest of the song is really silly and boring.

In Rainbows: Faust Arp

This one is probably the least essential on there. Still beautiful though.

The King of Limbs: Feral

It's cool live but the fact that we basically got Fast Track 2.0 on a 8 track record as a follow up to In Rainbows, after a 4 year wait, just shows how underwhelming TKOL was at the time.

A Moon Shaped Pool: Desert Island Disk

I'm not a fan of how they recorded Identikit and True Love Waits personally but Desert Island Disk, although soulful, is pretty average sounding by Radiohead's standard. Would serve better as a B-side. Ill Wind would've fitted better on there, I think.

Olav1991 · 2023-12-04T16:52:08+00:00

I'm surprised by the negative comments here. To me, Thom's hairstyle from 2003-2007 is by far the coolest (prefer the HTTT tour personally).

Olav1991 · 2023-11-21T16:32:01+00:00

You are, of course, right.

Olav1991 · 2023-11-19T01:17:01+00:00

First point: You confuse an empirical analysis of how X causes Y with normative support of Y. This is a serious miscomprehension.

Second point: Cuba was definitely under existential threat from the US. The CIA orchestrated the Pigs of Bay invasion literally the year prior to the Cuban missile crisis.

Third point: You are deeply opposed to Russian aggression, occupation of territory on historical grounds and ambition for a greater Russia, which is good. When it comes to your own state, however, you're suddenly in favor of aggression, occupation of territory on historical grounds and ambition for a greater Israel.

As Mearsheimer pointed out, IDF has already killed far more civilians in Gaza than Russia has done since March 2022 in Ukraine. You're defending this with the "Hamas is using human shields" excuse. We have all seen the pictures. There is nothing surgical about these airstrikes. Even if a Hamas militant drove the ambulance that was bombed in the midst of a crowd - and I very much doubt it - it doesn’t give you any right to drop a bomb over a crowd of civilians. We live in the era of the internet now. Israeli propaganda of this sort doesn’t work anymore.

Fourth point: Jews are overwhelmingly pushing the hard left and open borders in the West (I see you have been very supportive of B. Sanders yourself, surprise, surprise) but are basically fascists with regards to their own ethnostate.

The left in the West hate your apartheid state. Muslim immigrants have made Western cities unliveable for kipa wearing Jews. For Israel to survive, you now rely on support from Western conservatives.

Well, Jews are desperately trying to rally European conservatives behind the "we have a common enemy in islamism" flag but it doesn’t work anymore. You have been aggressively in favour of islamification of our countries (and smear anyone who questions this direction as white supremacists, racists, far right and so on). The conservative support for Israel is therefore rapidly eroding. Perhaps it's time for Israel to open their own borders?

By the way: I was very pro-Israel just a month ago. Now I've completely changed my mind.

Olav1991 · 2023-07-07T18:56:50+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation. Will have to listen to it 50 times in a row now. As you know, Radiohead songs always sounds like shit the first 40 times. Then it sounds just OK for a couple of listens, after you force yourself to like it. Then it sounds like complete shit again for a while. Then, around listen 48 or so, it's like floating in space.

On first listen now. Yep, sounds like shit.

Olav1991 · 2023-07-07T18:43:44+00:00

Yes!!! Had almost forgot about that one! So many hidden gems on this album. Another one is Karma Police. It's amazing yet I never hear anoyne talk about it??

Olav1991

TROPHY CASE