Coldplay
Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends (Capitol)
The deal: Sporting
Sgt. Pepper-style military jackets, borrowing artwork by French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix, and hooking up with esoteric producer
Brain Eno, Coldplay are looking for a career-defining moment with their fourth studio album. Chris Martin recently told MTV, “We feel like you should steal from the best, so we tend to steal from the Beatles, U2, and Jay-Z.” Throw Arcade Fire in there as well and you’ll have a pretty good idea what the band is going for with the awkwardly titled
Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends. But is the album capable of pulling it off?
We say: Coldplay did just fine with the heart-tugging piano ballads that dominated their first three albums, but it's nice to hear the group lightly stepping out of its comfort zone here. The album isn’t exactly the masterpiece the band thinks it is, but it’s got some great moments on it and the tumbling melodies, life-and-death lyrics, and epic guitar flights are generally awesome. Chris Martin is in an adventurous mood―which doesn’t always mean he’s taking risks―but working with Eno was definitely a good call. And you can sense exuberance in the new songs, something that the band needed more than ever after years of being considered second-tier rock stars.
They say: “
Viva la Vida is Coldplay’s effort to raise the creative bar in the wake of both huge commercial success and some not-insubstantial critical drubbing. But befitting their brand, the record isn’t that much of a departure: It’s still about stadium-scale melodies and singalong choruses." ―
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Violet Hill”