This is a review in two parts, over two pages. I wanted to discuss the download issue separately from the musical content of the album, because in too many reviews the latter is dismissed to focus on the former. If you don't want to hear any more about online distribution, then click straight through to the music review.

Out of the blue, Big Band announce their new album is available for download, at whatever cost the user cares to pay. Or you can wait a few weeks and get the normal compact disc via the usual channels.

From a marketing POV, this leak-release strategy is all aces: the fans get a freebie (of sorts), the hype will build itself (it was the novelty news item of the week, it became Radiohead Day), and hey it's a New Thing, which marketing always needs. For the music industry too, this represents an important push in the trend to online distribution, and for genuinely changing how distribution works as part of the music industry racket.

Sure, once the initial rush to download passed, and download figures and income figures are eventually released (or not), this might be another story, a very interesting online behaviour case-study.

But I like the boldness of it, the decisive placement of the ball in the consumer's court; saying You've waited long enough, now you can decide how much to pay for it. It's an amazing act of modesty on the one hand, and a powerful inversion of how value and cost is decided in the music industry. It's modest because it puts the onus of worth purely on the consumer; it's a way for the consumer to express his appreciation in real terms. And it's a new level of choice in a previously set-price racket; you pay what you feel is right. This is important. It puts Major Band Radiohead squarely on par with Average Joe Guitarist with a webpage of noodling MP3s and a PayPal button. It's a top-down levelling that hails the new distribution medium. It also seems very much the right thing to do right now, considering how far behind the ball the music industry is regarding the Internet.

Let me repeat the point: the consumer drives value. This goes against market-driven supply and demand determining cost, and it goes right against music industry capitalism and the cynical marketing of manufactured pop brands. It's a triumph for the fans and the online distribution philosophy as a whole.

Sure, Radiohead don't need big-buck record deals to fatten their coffers. They get plenty of income from their occasional tours. And they can angle for a new distribution deal at their leisure; there's no contract in fixed terms hanging over their head. So in a way it's a great exploitation of their position that they can do this whole alternative marketing; it's a braveness acts like U2 can't enter into any more. And still, with a million plus downloads, it's not going to be unprofitable either way. I'd expect most kids will pay zip for the download (ex CC fee), with all the idiot glee of P2P morons who don't value or absorb music — but it's the value-fans that matter. I paid two pounds, or five Australian dollars. I'm a fan.

Recently Trent Reznor followed a similar path of download-distribution, and in an interview I heard him carping about Radiohead's 'cynical' use of a deliberately mid-quality download (160 kbps) to push CD sales, which is just smarmy. I don't think The Trent realises most people consume music on mid-fi MP3 players with cruddy earphones and therefore don't understand the subtleties of fidelity… as you would on a noisy NIN record. In Rainbows doesn't sound the best when converted back to normal CD format, but then there's always the disc should I crave that tiny degree of extra bottom and top-end clarity. Trent's servers fell over because he only wanted to peddle hi-grade MP3s to his discerning fans.

If the internet had been a real medium in the 70s, then all the punk acts would've embraced it wholeheartedly. Cheap distribution without cigar-chomping middlemen; cheaply produced music made in home-built studios. No fancy promotional campaigns or market analysis and hype-generation. Just putting great product out there and into the hands of fans. There's elements of the punk ethos in this Radiohead deal, a certain anti-pretention perhaps, a renegade stance.

And the beauty of the album musically is that it's perfectly in sync with the marketing stance: despite sounding like typical Radiohead (slightly gloomy, paranoid, locked in solitude) — above all else it sounds like any halfway decent and original band could do this. Any talented band that has lived thru some degree of modern absurdity. It's experimental in ways that modern recording technology makes easy. It's bold in its near-minimalism. It forefronts the importance of a good voice, songwriting intuitiveness and a strong rhythm section. It sounds democratic and wholly of its time. And it doesn't sound like millions were dropped on studio or fancy producer costs. It sounds completely can-do. What else is this if not a punk ethic?

This is the new deal in music and music distribution. And though you might not like the resultant tunes, the undeniable truth stands: this band works.