Review: Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends

My set text for History this year, inspired by Coldplay.

Oh lord, I really didn't want to find myself liking this album, but I knew I probably would. 'Viva La Vida' is a good record, and there's absolutely no way I can save face by pretending it's not. I've skirted around the issue in my head all week: how am I going to confess that this is just quite good? I can't. Hands up, confession; I liked it.

For the record, I hated 'X&Y' and I'd basically say it's a distillation of everything detestable about Coldplay; it strived to be serious and epic (read: bluster) but came off trite, patronising and far too long, as if the band had completely failed to edit out anything superfluous. 'Viva La Vida' on the other hand, is the record Coldplay probably should have made after 'A Rush of Blood To The Head'.

At a brisk 45 minutes, other than the quite tiresome first half of 'Lovers In Japan' (a bit too 'X&Y'), there's nothing that makes me wince or grind my teeth in the way that record did. In fact, rather than simply sticking synths over everything and messing around with effects pedals, Coldplay seem to have decided they do want to move out of their comfort zone and artfully mess things up a bit, which does actually play to unexpected hidden strengths.

There are all manner of left-turns; 'Yes' is half sleazy then suddenly turns shoegazey, 'Lost!' is anthemic Coldplay that doesn't think it's changing the world and the closer 'Death and All His Friends' turns from a cutesy piano number into an Arcade Fire chant. Even a straight-up love song like 'Strawberry Swing' sounds beautiful, largely thanks to buried vocals, spacious Eno production and Chris Martin's refusal to slip back into stupid 'Fix You' platitudes. Importantly, this doesn't sound like the band forcing itself to itself to 'get clever'; it feels natural and right.

Make no mistake, there's nothing on here that will change the way you think about music, but there are quite possibly ten tracks that will change the way you think about Coldplay.

Verdict: "No, really." B+