Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 12/06/08
Label: EMI

There will never be a shortage of Coldplay haters, usually for questionable motives. Sometimes it's snobbery, a reflexive sneer at anything popular with everyone from indie kids to housewives. Sometimes it's chippy resentment at their middle classness, their university education. And sometimes it's stale machismo, a tired belief that rock'n'roll is about getting drunk and punching journalists. In the case of Alan McGee it's all three.

But there are also those who feel cheated by how safe Coldplay have played it, who saw in their first two albums exceptional talent grasping towards greatness, only to see that hope dashed on "X & Y"'s mediocre coasting. These people have a point and Chris Martin must know it, given how fervently he's been insisting the atrociously titled "Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends" marks a revolution in his band's sound. Well, reports of the death of the old Coldplay have been much exaggerated.

In fact, what's remarkable about the fourth Coldplay album - a few cosmetic touches aside - is how unshowy and straightforward it is, particularly given the involvement of Brian Eno, a man who probably tries to turn paying for groceries into an epoch-shaking collaboration. There are a few minor sonic diversions - ranging from the awful Indian strings that nearly demolish the otherwise lovely "Yes!" to the rather thrilling guitar explosions that liven up "Violet Hill" - but this is not the sound of a band who want to change their formula too much, let alone the world.

They just want to add a few pretty songs to it. On which basis it's a success, ten songs which show off Martin's effortless instinct for thrillingly direct melody, a talent long since lost by rivals like Stipe and Bono. "Lost" is one of Martin's warm, embracing singalongs, built on a crunchy beat and a dense mass of church organs, while "42" starts out sweet, simple and piercingly pretty before an abrupt and welcome volte face into a choppy guitar anthem.

Even the mostly instrumental "Life In Technicolour" - which opens in a rush of warm, ambient synth and a chiming steal of Depeche Mode's "Strangelove" riff - ends in a soaring burst of singsong, as if it just can't help itself. If there's nothing as sublime as "The Scientist" or "Trouble", then neither is there anything as cloying as "Fix You". In fact, the only horrible thing on display here are the lyrics, with Martin's evolution into a walking and only semi-sentient self-help manual nearly complete.

"Soldiers, you've got to soldier on", he insists, somehow topping it with "just because I'm hurting doesn't mean I'm hurt". But then, Coldplay are neither philosophers nor avant garde artists, they're a pop band. They may never make a record as unself-conscious as "Parachutes" again, nor as mournfully beautiful as "A Rush Of Blood To The Head" - vast fame and comfort have fatally intervened - but there won't be many more melodically rich albums than "Viva La Vida" released this year. Difficult to admire but easy to love.

    by Jaime Gill