Coldplay: Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends
Monday, 09 Jun 2008 10:50
Revolutionary vigour on Coldplay's fourth album
EMI, out June 12th.
In a nutshell...
Chris Martin and co get all cinematic on our arses
What's it all about?
Coldplay's fourth LP comes to us in the guise of 'album as pension', with the nice boys of rock saving the skins and savings of all at EMI, whose future had seemed increasingly bleak with the departures of Sir Paul McCartney, Radiohead and Robbie Williams.
The nerves of the record label's staff would have been further tested by rumours of internal discontent in the Coldplay camp but with the appointment of Brian Eno on production duties, an entente cordiale was reached between messrs Martin, Buckland, Berryman and Champion, prompting the return of the 'Biggest Band in the World' and if the download count for Violet Hill is anything to go by, the arrival of the highest-selling album of 2008.
Who's it by?
From forming in the music rooms at UCL, winning hearts with their earnest shoegazing debut before making the leap to superstardom with simple, subtle singalongs, Coldplay have slowly and steadily become the biggest band in the world. With the delay of their third album X&Y causing a fall in EMI stock, and the snappily-titled Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends ostensibly the record label's guardian angel, the foursome of Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman and Will Champion have pulled off something commendable in fashioning fairly mediocre talents into a stadium-filling global brand.
As an example...
"Just because I'm leaving, doesn't mean I'm lost/Doesn't mean I'll stop, doesn't mean I'm cross" - Lost!
"Sometimes you've got to soldier on/Sometimes you won't know right is wrong" = Lovers…
"God only God knows I'm trying my best/But I'm just so tired of this loneliness" - Yes
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
Inevitable. While it's nowhere near the stylistic leap the band had promised, it's pulled off in such a professional manner, while retaining the wobbly bottom lip that separates them from, say, Arcade Fire, and wins them a place in the affections of fans and critics alike, even those who recognise that they're one of the most vanilla bands on the marketplace.
What the others say
"At its best, however, Viva la Vida poses an interesting question: do you need to be cool or experimental if you can write songs that carry the listener along regardless of their reservations - indeed, almost despite them?" - Alexis Petridis, Guardian
"The string/brass mutations that bolster a track like Viva La Vida may not be a million miles from his mates, the Arcade Fire, but I bet they'd donate several limbs to conjure tunes so sweetly melancholy. Any way you look at it, this is a massive album. Get used to it, you'll be hearing it a LOT over the next two years." - Chris Jones, BBC
So is it any good?
As the instrumental opener Life in Technicolour washes over you, there's a brief thought of 'Hang on, didn't Athlete do something like this on their last album?', but with trademark Eno plinks and plonks and drums that owe a debt to Martin's Arcade Fire idols, it's a soothing introduction and an indication of things to come.
The chorus of Cemeteries of London flatters to deceive but this is going to be magic and monumental on the stadium circuit and while the bongo-backed Chris Martin avowals of Lost! are easy to ignore, 42 is jarring in its transformation in under four minutes. It opens with an ethereal piano, with a little Imagine thrown in there and while Martin's still guilty of his usual fatuous faux-profound lyrics ("Those who are dead are not dead, they're just living in my head"), the industrial middle eight complete with factory-like stops and starts and a guitar that slants and screeches like Stephenson's Rocket is enough to forgive his lyrical simplicity, before a majestic, climbing climax comes with a vocal so swirling from Martin that you can imagine him doing that spinning on one foot dance he so loves.
Lovers In Japan/Reign of Love has next single written all over it and in terms of tone, is the closest approximation to the album. With waterfall piano and building percussion, it's definitively Coldplay, undeniably competent, unabashedly heartfelt and honest and thanks to Eno's dream-like production, feels like it should be soundtracking a pivotal scene from an indie movie.
The latter half of the track brings an unexpected slide into a strained, soft extended outro, with the constraints of Martin's voice both his weakness and greatest strength in a sister song to X & Y's Kingdom Come, before the overly ornate Yes/Chinese Sleep Chant melds Elgar and My Bloody Valentine.
Native American cries echo around a deeper, Parachutes-era vocal of self-reproach from Martin on Viva La Vida before the pounding Violet Hill arrives as an epiphany of sorts for the album. Like Lovers In Japan, it's a fitting picture postcard of the album, with Coldplay exhibiting some new influences but retaining their instinct for songs that worm their way into your subconscious, whether you're willing or not.
Strawberry Swing seems the gap year cousin of In My Place, complete with beads, beats and dreads, as Jonny Buckland's summery guitar shows that at least some of the band are developing musically and closing track Death And All His Friends comes as the dusk to Life in Technicolour's dawn, and is reminiscent of a slow collapse into bed after a day that has surprised, shocked, saddened and more than satisfied.
And just as Elbow's The Seldom Seen Kid provided a perfect example of an album as a piece of art in itself, rather than just a collection of songs, Guy Garvey's friend Chris Martin does the same here, combining songs that soar for stadium-sized singalongs with sombre, slow-burners and all under the soporific glare of Brian Eno's knob-twiddling, which washes over you like a Valium slowly taking effect.
It's not their OK Computer - it's probably not even their Hail to the Thief - but in sticking to the plan - stealthily introducing alternative influences to a mainstream audience under the veil of emotive, lowest common denominator lullabies - Chris Martin and co are moving towards greatness. Whether they're cool, bold or brave really isn't relevant.
7/10
Lewis Bazley
"A pretty accurate and succinct review. This album is good but is not complex enough to hold my interest." - Rich Wilde
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