Songs of the Week: Radiohead set tongues wagging, Rihanna doesn’t

RADIOHEAD
Burn The Witch ★★★★
XL Recordings
"I haven't read a newspaper for months," scoffed beat poet Allen Ginsberg, in America. "Everyday someone goes on trial for murder." The first single from Radiohead's ninth studio album is a throbbing, "low-flying panic attack" set to music. Par for the course from the group, one might say. But it is the video (a stop-motion animation retelling of The Wicker Man, set, somewhat incongruously, in appears to be Postman Pat's home town) that has set tongues wagging.

Is the video, as some speculate, really about mass surveillance or the rise of Donald Trump? I think it could as plausibly be a comment on the daily ritual of online shaming. Imagine, the claymation sacrifice is, say, Roddy Doyle and the villagers are a bunch of Twitter busybodies who’ve worked themselves into a tizzy over a Facebook post? Works for me anyway.

I AM NIAMH
Wait Until The Morning Comes  ★★★
Niamh Parkinson (the "I Am" part is redundant, is it not?) is a Dublin- based multi- instumentalist in the Kate Bush/Julie Feeney mould. Her debut album Wonderland was released last year.

WASTEFELLOW
Wonder Little ★★★
L Records
Wastefellow is a Dubliner named Diolmhain Ingram Roche. His moniker is borrowed from the lyrics to Vennu Mallesh's infamous YouTube smash It's My Life What Ever I Wanna Do. And his video will make you feel like you're having a stroke. What's not to like? Oh yeah, the stroke part…

CALVIN HARRIS ft RIHANNA
This Is What You Came For ★★
Sony
The cover art for this features a firebolt flashing over a mountain. And five years after he and Rihanna collaborated on the monster hit We Found Love, the Scottish producer is no doubt hoping lightning strikes twice. Will it? Who knows? This chart pabulum all sounds pretty much interchangeable to me at this point.