Blue Morpho

The Roast

“Blue Morpho is the sound of a man who has spent thirty years standing slightly behind Thom Yorke and has decided, gently, that he would like a turn at the front of the stage, please, if nobody minds. Ed is Radiohead's texture guy, the ambient wash artist, the human reverb pedal, and an entire album of that turns out to be exactly what you would expect: gorgeous, drifting, occasionally weightless to the point of evaporation. There are moments here, particularly in the title track and the middle stretch, where the guitar tone alone justifies the whole project, all shimmering delay and underwater chorus, the kind of sound you cannot buy in a pedal because it lives in his fingers. The problem is that texture without a strong songwriting spine starts to feel like very expensive curtains in an empty room, and Earth had this same furniture issue back in 2020, except nobody noticed because we were all locked indoors pretending banana bread was a personality. Blue Morpho is better, calmer, more considered, and yet the spectre of Tomorrow's Modern Boxes is right there in the next room, humming louder than Ed is willing to hum himself. He is too tasteful to compete and too talented to disappear, which leaves us with a beautiful record that politely declines to ever become essential. A 7.0 album from a man capable of an 8.5 if he ever decided to actually want it that badly.”

The Bright Side

The atmospheric craft is genuinely top-tier, and as a producer-songwriter hybrid Ed proves he can carry a record without anyone else from the band carrying him. Blue Morpho is the first time his solo work feels like a real artistic statement rather than a lockdown side quest, and the back half rewards patient listening.

Hardest Sneer

“Ed has finally made a solo album that sounds like Ed, which is a triumph until you remember Ed's whole job in Radiohead was making everybody else sound better.”

Issues (3)