The World Warms To Coldplay

Coldplay X&Y Review

Source: Daily Mail, UK, Friday 3 June, 2005

The main thing that strikes you about the new Coldplay album is not the geometric sleeve or Chris Martin's aching vocals. It's the way that Britain's best band have turned themselves into a wide-screen production: big, broad, and surely bound for world domination. X&Y attempts to do for Coldplay what 1984's the unforgetable fire did for U2.

There have been changes aplenty in and around the group since 2002's A Rush of Blood To The Head, which sold 10Million. Singer Martin had married actress Gwyneth Paltrow and become a father. And a swathe on new bands - Keane, SnowPatrol and Athlete - have all staked claims to Coldplays melodic rock crown.

The quartets response has been to roughen up and return with an accomplished 12track collection which keeps one eye on reiterating their core values (the elegaic soft-tempo ballads of old remain) and another on establishing a more muscular outlook that will win over stadium audiences from Berlin to BuenosAires.

In making these subtle refinements, Coldplay are heavily indebted to U2: guitarist JohnnyBuckland'd playing is drenched in delay and reverb. But there are other influences at play too/ The bands artful, imaginative chord changes and Martins piano work recall The Beatles (particularly Abbey road) while there are also nods to German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk.

X&Y opens with 2 potential hits, both of which are stronger than Speed of Sound, the Coldplay single that was beaten to no1 by CrazyFrog's AXelF, adisco remix of the worlds most hated ringtone.

SquareOne is a chugging u2-inspired workout.WhatIf is a mellower piano ballad which finds Martin in PaulMcCartner mode. Coldplay's new energised approach is again evident on White Shadows, a full-pelt rocker, and FixYou, which builds towards a choral climax. It's easy to imagine the latter, apparently inspired by Jimmy Cliffs Many Rivers to Cross, being sung by thousands when the band headline the second night of the Glastonbury Festival this month.

Another early track, Talk, steals it's riff from Kraftwerks Computer love. The psychedelic title track meanwhile rounds of the first part of the album - the 'X' songs - by harking back to Pink Floyd.

The second half - The Y songs - pales slightly in comparison.. Speed of Sound, a single built around a descending piano motif and will champions pounding drums, has something of a Coldplay-by-numbers feel to it. The closing track, Twisted Logic, is lumpy and plodding.

Then there are the words. On tracks such as a Message - 'My song is love alone and I'm on fire for you' - Martin finds it hard to escape a lyrical vagueness. The singer would argue that he lets listeners put their own interpretations on the songs. But, despite his poetic turn of phrase, it is sometimes hard to tell what a Coldplay song is all about.

However X&Y rushes to a satisfying conclusion. The Hardest Part is a jangly pop tune worthy of REM while Swallowed in The Sea is an immediate rolling soft-rock anthem that confidently restated the bands traditional strengths. X&Y is Coldplays most fully realised record. It is lush and layered without relying on it's slick modern production. Those who persist in calling the group dull are influenced more by Martins refusal to conform to any Wild Man Of Rock stereotype than anything particularly bland in the quartets music.

Of the 12 songs here, at least 3 -What If, Fix You, and Swallowed in The Sea - will quickly worm their way into the hearts of millions. Others such as the title track, reveal their qualities more stealthily.

Coldplay agonised long and hart ove X&Y. The result is a progressive album that moves the band forward without straying too far from the blueprint established on Parachutes and A Rush Of Blood To The Head.

Source: Daily Mail, Friday, June 3.