Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends - Coldplay

Who wants another Coldplay review? What do you mean nobody cares?! Ah well, here goes. Coldplay's fourth album, the needlessly long titled 'Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends' drafts in legendary producer Brian Eno (Bowie, Talking Heads, U2) to produce and this is undoubtedly the key in creating the new sound on this album. This is no more evident than in the opener 'Life In Technicolour' which has now been improved (vocals added) and released as a single from the EP 'Prospekt's March' (check out the video for this, which is also pretty good), it's 'jingly-jangly' guitars very similar to U2's Where The Streets Have No Name' or Bowie's 'Heroes' The album introduces fans to what we can expect to be 'Coldplay: Part 2', ie a far more varied use of instruments leading to a much deeper, richer sound, creating a much more interesting sound and varied album. 42 is the first track to really stand out on the album, mainly due to its changing pace and the usually catchy lyrics. The majority of the album diverges away from Martin's usual lyrical formula of rhyming couplets save for the albums far and away best track - Viva La Vida. Strings in abundance, it would seem that in a live show the rest of the band would be a little lost, unless they decided to turn their hand to xylophones or synths. However this song is still great and is up there with The Scientist, Clocks and Yellow as one of their best songs, as is the next track and second single from the album, Violet Hill, following the anthemic, stadium orientated feel of most of the album. Featuring few low points, even during the three 6-minute-plus songs, the albums strength is its diversity. Shorter than the 2 previous albums, Viva La Vida still manages to pack in far more than any of its predecessors and is just as listenable. Hopefully in the next few albums we'll see Coldplay continue their new-found experimentation with new sounds, whilst sticking to their strengths of massive songs to match their massive fan base.



Overall Rating: 8/10



Top Tracks:



42

Lovers In Japan

Viva La Vida [5 Star Track]

Violet Hill

Strawberry Swing

Pendulum - In Silico

PENDULUM!!! I love this band when I heard their first LP 'Hold you colour'. Drum n bass (DnB) combined with some rock riffs, amazing!!! That was 4 years ago, now with a major label signing and more money to improve their music, you could only imagine the creativety that these guys are gonna come up with.

And so they release 'In Silico'. And when I heard the first track 'Showdown', I was mildy confused. Lyrics? Ok, fine why not. And then I was dissappointed. No DnB at all. That's what made them seperate from the rest.

Unfortunately, its like this for the rest of the album, they seem to leave their DnB roots and have gone for a rock electronica sound. Yep, I'd say its fair to call them a sell-out, its obvious they made this album to be 'radio friendly'. It's quite cheesy album, with tracks like 'Propane nightmare' using, I think trumpets, makes it quite cringey to listen to. However when it gets into the rock and amazingly fast drumming sound, it actually sounds pretty good. Although its cheesy, its some good cheese that you'd be happy to put on your pizza (I'm sorry). If you were to take this album as a rock electro album and forget their previous efforts using the DnB sounds. it's a pretty good listen (even if they have sold out). Tracks like 'visions' is really interesting using a electronic voice, although it sounds like its from a computer game, but its a tune that can be listen to anytime, whether you're relaxing or writing a review on the laptop :). 'Midnight Runner' is also a stand out tune, really cool and has quite a spaceshipy soundtrack, something not heard much on the mainstream scene. '9,000 miles' has a great sound to it, although the vocals are a bit weak and makes you just wanna say 'Dude allow singing please :) '. Great song though and does grow on you. 'Tempest' is a weird track in a way that all the other tracks were very electronica, but this sounds like it was done by the a punk rock band on acid. Still, a pretty decent track but not the best choice to be their last track in my opinion.

One word advice, stay away from 'Mutiny', sounds like something out of Power rangers, really weird and so random, its not cool at all. And 'granite' is just a crap song. What the hell is that mysterious whistle in the beginning all about, and the riff is so annoying but I guess it be good at a rave for some people. These tracks really let the album down, and if probably why some old DnB pendulum fans have criticised this album.

Overall, the album is a great rock electronic album, but if like me your a fan of their previous stuff with the amazing DnB sound, you'd think they took a step backwards. The sound has probably been done before by other rock electro groups out their, but the previous album 'Hold your Colour' was unheard of and that's what made pendulum one of the most epic bands at that time. I gave 'In silico' a high score, but imagine what I'd give 'Hold your colour'. Pendulum have obviously try to become more radio friendly to sell more record (this album did go gold and went to number one, unlike 'Hold your colour'). But hopefully in the future they will return to the DnB roots and creat some mental tracks. Get 'In silico' if you wanna listen to a good rave, get 'Hold your colour' if you wanna hear one of the greatest albums ever!

Overall rating: 8/10

Top tracks:

Propane nightmare (apart from the trumpets)

Visions

Midnight runner

9,000 miles