Its dated 14th June so I'm thinking this may not have been posted yet.

 

 

Coldplay: Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends

 

Victoria Segal

 

 

Like the people of Gotham and their relationship with Batman, stadium-league rock bands always know that there is somebody they can call on in times of need. It's a distinctive rite of passage: the moment you look at your bandmates and decide the moment has come to shine a giant dome-headed silhouette into the night sky, thus summoning Brian Eno to produce your next record. Like U2 and Talking Heads before them, it's Coldplay's turn to call on the sonic provocateur for an infusion of inspiration on their new album, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends.

 

Eno's presence remains a convenient experimental shorthand, a way of saying: “Look! We're not complacent despite our millions of sales!” without doing anything as radical as alienating your fanbase with a Kid A-style diversion. Certainly, there is nothing on Viva La Vida to melt the brains of anyone who purchased X&Y. Yet while it is initially tempting to listen to this album and try to guess how ubiquitous this set of songs will become - David Attenborough is going to have to produce another landmark series just so the instrumental opener Life in Technicolor can soundtrack footage of polar bears - the quartet have succeeded in deepening their sound without committing commercial suicide.

 

How much of a role Eno played in getting them to ditch their most irritating tics is hard to estimate, but Viva La Vida doesn't seem like the work of a band who are interested in preaching to the converted any longer. Their zealous pull towards the huggy, anthemic singalong seems to have dimmed, while Chris Martin's cardiganed croon descends into darker tones, most noticeably on the title track, a slab of late-period Beatles paranoia for the iPod age.

 

This is a record glittering with texture (the crisp clear strings of Yes, the stained- glass smash of Lost!), and while this can't always disguise their U2 pretensions (Cemeteries of London, Lovers in Japan), it succeeds in highlighting a side to the band that isn't synonymous with fair trade wristbands and a vague sense of well-bred melancholy. In fact, Viva La Vida might well become the Coldplay album for people who don't like Coldplay - and at this stage of their unit-shifting career, that's no small achievement.

 

 

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/cd_reviews/article4105821.ece

Kid A :snore:

 

The overall review (snark aside) is quite good, she's saying the album is good but still only gives it a 3/5.

^ Victoria = she, actually ;)

 

Victoria Segal is a pretty popular reviewer, but I'm not surprised at her opinion on this one. In fact, I've come to not be surprised by anything average the British musical press is dumping on us right now.

Ha, didn't even look at the name :P

Well, least she started off with a Batman comparison and not a U2 one.

 

Props for originality :P

well pretty good and bad review mix it is!:lol:

haha the mention of Batman made me respect her from the start. Even though she only gave it 3/5, her final remarks were incredibly positive, so I can live with the rating.

that last part was good. thanks for that!