As the clock ticks down on the return to the Cambridge term, I find myself again on the train from London Kings Cross to Cambridge, eagerly pawing through my Spotify playlists for something to fill the journey.

One of my new-term resolutions has been to stay more in touch with the news. I vowed to increase my diligence in trawling through my mobile news apps; to at least attempt to keep up with the rapidity of change in current affairs, most notably the constant vicissitudes of America as it wrangles with its newly elected president. I would no longer be lost in the week-by-week Cambridge bubble of essay-writing, Sidge-commuting, MASH-attending ignorance.

For all these reasons, my finger hovered momentarily over Radiohead’s 2003 album, Hail to the Thief. Buried deep in the downloads, I remembered with a smile its thinly veiled anti-George W. Bush polemic: lyrics littered with fragmented, lurid and long-lasting images, reverbed and grungy guitars, punchy electronic rhythms that don’t allow listening to be too comfortable. The release saw the band’s return to taking an active role in talking about (and advertising) their record after their promotional silence over previous albums Kid A and Amnesiac; their 20-years-since re-entry into the dialogue of how art stands against politics seemed all too good an opportunity for me to relive the early-noughties sound with a fresh ear, and think on all things American as we surpass Trump’s 100-day mark in office.

“Reverbed and grungy guitars, punchy electronic rhythms that don’t allow listening to be too comfortable”

‘2 + 2 = 5’ (heralded as one of Radiohead’s greatest album-opening tracks), immediately serves as HTTF’s ”mission statement”: over the gloomy guitars and electric underbeat, Yorke erupts into howls of “all hail to the thief” and “Don’t question my authority or put me in a box”. We’re off to a strong start. What immediately lurches to mind is Trump’s constitutional firestorm on only Day 20 of his administration, after JD Vance’s tweet: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power” (which smacks of “who watches the watchmen”). The world of HTTF’s lyrics and sound is dystopian, and all the more so in that it is a present-dystopia, where two and two make five, objectively, despite the cries of “But it’s not, but it’s not”.

‘Sit Down. Stand Up.’ also bears the opener’s authoritative imperatives and haunting vocals: Yorke reminds us “Hey, we can wipe you out anytime,” as his voice teeters into distortion. ‘Sail to the Moon’ takes a sonic turn — a lullaby (an albeit grim one) written by Yorke for his son, Noah — bearing hopes (“Maybe you’ll / Be president”) and fears that the new generation will have to “Sail us to the moon” if they don’t “know right from wrong”.

‘Backdrifts’ contains similar political echoes (“All evidence has been buried, / All tapes have been erased”), and with the whispers of “Little babies’ eyes, eyes, eyes, eyes” in ‘I Will’, it is easy to agree with Alexis Petridis’s 3-star review of the article for The Guardian back in 2003, that “(i)t is hard to fathom what songs such as I Will and The Gloaming are so cheesed off about. As a result, the album’s prevalent mood is a vague, grumpy dissatisfaction. It doesn’t sound horrified or angered by the state of the world.”

I think Petridis is exactly right.

The “grumpy dissatisfaction” of the album’s quieter tracks serves the modern listening American: the dejected, dumbstruck, and misery-beaten everyman, stupefied as Musk wields a chainsaw onstage to symbolise his political rock-star status in prime Javier Milei fashion. “CHAINSAW!” is his cry, as he continues to deliver financial slashes to the federal government.

“Stupefied as Musk wields a chainsaw onstage to symbolise his political rock-star status in prime Javier Milei-fashion”

I don’t know how much energy you can expect in the face of these levels of dystopian absurdity. I try to imagine the student who sees their university institution legally and financially strongarmed into increased hostility towards liberal ideology. Someone, as in ‘Scatterbrain,’ likely inured to “Yesterday’s headlines blown by the wind,” unable to keep up with the changes of daily press briefings and erratic signings of legislation, inured to an America where “Yesterday’s people end up scatterbrain there”.

The flashier tracks — the hollow toms of ‘There, There’ and funky bassline and grotesque comedy of ‘A Punch Up at a Wedding’ — all chime with the tone of un-thrilled dissatisfaction of the album as a whole. The thundering piano of ‘We Suck Young Blood,’ paints a distressing image of a divisive and vampiric healthcare system. The raw noise of ‘Myxomatosis’ and the pseudo-fairytale charm of ‘A Wolf at the Door’ (my personal favourite) leave me in a lost, dejected free-fall I can only imagine those in the finance world experienced on Trump’s economic ‘Liberation Day’. Regardless of its over 20-year age, Hail to the Thief’s sound of resentment, humiliation, and desolation, still manages to echo in the global world today.

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