Coldplay - Viva La Vida

COMFORT ROCK

Or Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, to give the ‘Play’s new album its full and entirely unpretentious title. Make no mistake, this is the soundtrack of sitting about the house with Gwyneth and the kids, fretting about organic foodstuffs and where to take the recycling. It’s also, as is customary for Coldplay, pretty much unobjectionable in its relative lack of adventure.

On the singles, ‘Violet Hill’ and ‘Viva La Vida’, Chris Martin’s melodies are tight and intuitive, while Afrobeat rhythms are experimented with on ‘Lost’ and the instrumental ‘Life in Technicolor’. Perhaps much of the record’s conviction is facilitated by producer Brian Eno, but it’s an album which unashamedly believes in itself, and is hard to dislike on its own terms.

Coldplay - Violet Hill - official video