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
great review
ReplyDelete