“Where do we go from here?” sings Thom Yorke anxiously on the title track: by the mid-90s Radiohead were known but largely ignored, increasingly frustrated with a fame resting almost entirely on their 1992 single ‘Creep’. The Bends is essentially the answer to Yorke’s question, taking what one critic described as “Nirvana-lite” and turning it into the Radiohead that, for all the subsequent twists and turns taken in their subsequent career, is still largely recognisable.
You only need to compare ‘Creep’ – a song about a self-described “weirdo” with nothing weird, or indeed particularly interesting, about it – with even the weakest offerings on The Bends to gauge just how much had changed. The influence of more straightforward rock and grunge is still apparent, with the occasional blatantly derivative moment like ‘High and Dry’s five-note guitar solo or the four-square introductory riff to ‘Just’. But by this time Radiohead’s sound was becoming fuller and more complex: the melodies are distinctive and often hauntingly beautiful, just as frequently underpinned by contrapuntal guitar figures or strange, shifting harmonies than more simplistic rock tropes. Songs like ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ show the beginnings of a very different approach to songwriting, with lyrics possessing the alienated tone and elusive imagery that came to define Radiohead from OK Computer onwards – all refracted through Yorke’s trademark angsty falsetto, by now a key feature.
Radiohead’s later albums would prove more structurally integrated and rein in less of the musical idiosyncrasies. Yet quite apart from containing some of their best individual songs, if nothing else The Bends remains so interesting as it shows Radiohead changing from a group of decent songwriters into one of the most influential bands of the past two decades. Its rain-streaked tone, vacillating awkwardly between anger and dejection, may seem too homogenous for those used to the more experimental Radiohead of later albums – but it is one which becomes increasingly satisfying to return to on repeated listening.
