It’s safe to go ahead and guess that even if there weren’t promises of name-your-price downloads and super-deluxe formats, any new Radiohead album would still be an excuse for hundreds of overwrought, state-of-the-industry type pieces coming from all angles. They’re a band that garners the same kind of self-reflective reaction no matter what they do, simply by being one of a few prematurely canonized groups still putting out records on a semi-regular basis. This time around, they just happened to make everyone’s jobs a little easier with a built-in abstract marketing plan, which can be summed up as follows: ten days notice on the release date (pretty brilliant), no set price for a download (awfully generous), an optional overpriced box set (whatever) and a physical CD hitting stores sometime next year (weak, but the million-plus people who already downloaded the thing probably couldn’t care less).

To some, the meticulous control over how listeners access In Rainbows smacks of Radiohead’s notorious pretentiousness; to others, it’s a revolutionary business model. Either way, the stunt’s not much of a shock coming from Radiohead — any less-successful band could never consider it. The long-term effects probably won’t amount to much, which makes it easier to focus on the small matter that In Rainbows is actually a pretty great album.

It doesn’t aim for weirdness and, at least for the typically lofty Radiohead, it’s not too dense. The album — much like the marketing plan — is an admission that this band can afford, both literally and figuratively, to do as they please. Thanks to the transformative arc of The Bends, OK Computer and Kid A, they’ve already been dubbed “classic,” “essential,” and “the biggest band in the world”; no new material’s going to sway those designations in either direction. In Rainbows is like their Who’s Next or their Physical Graffiti: it’s a late-career record that will never be considered as “influential” as their big three, but it’s a lot easier to swallow as a result.

The last time it seemed as though Radiohead might have been functioning as a real live rock band was 2003’s Hail to the Thief, supposedly released after a 14-day recording session. The result was a guitar-heavy experiment that most were quick to call a “return to form,” but it was too scattered to function as any such thing. Instead, it felt like a quick work-up of some Thom Yorke demo tapes. In Rainbows, on the other hand, sees the band playing as a band. There’s proof in portions of ‘Nude’ being collaboratively written in the 1998 documentary Meeting People is Easy, but there’s also the knowledge from OK Computer and Kid A that these guys can stretch out for months in a studio and actually sound like they’ve utilized the time and space. Again, it’s not a luxury most bands can afford, but at least this one’s making good on the promise.

There are still shades of weird, arty Radiohead about the album, mostly in the form of Yorke’s slurry, incomprehensible vocals. His 2006 solo album made clear he was still into heavy electronics and the more discomfiting aspects of his own voice, but with the band behind him, he feels a little displaced. The other four spend most of the songs in a steady lockstep, vaguely rocking out on ‘Bodysnatchers’ and ‘Jigsaw Falling into Place,’ playing up jazzier rhythms on ‘15 Step’ and ‘Weird Fishes,’ and meandering through dark, spacey templates on ‘Nude’ and ‘Videotape.’ Yorke falls in and out of sync with them, often getting lost in his high, lonely register. But he’s always been the figure that aimed to keep the weirdness flowing — In Rainbows is no exception.

In the end, it’s a well-balanced record, almost to the extent that it plays into the download-only format. For the first time since maybe The Bends, Radiohead’s put out a completely non-cohesive album, which makes sense for one that, at least until December, exists only as a folder of mp3s. There’s not much logic to the sequencing other than the frontloading of the two best songs, and the lyrics are too thoroughly mumbled to draw any sort of connections. Plus, any of these tracks could be shuffled into the Radiohead catalog and work alongside bits from throughout the band’s career. It probably wasn’t a deliberate move, but it’s convenient anyway — these ten songs work nicely as part of the sprawling iTunes libraries most Radiohead fans probably cultivate. Quibbles over formats, labels and business aside, the album just makes sense, both as a piece of pop music coming out at a strange time for pop music, and as yet another stunt from a consistently iconoclastic band. Will it save the music industry? Probably not. But it’ll set a better example than The Next Great American Band.