Gob Bluth

After the Full Moon edition an EP seems unlikely, plus they haven't played much of their new stuff live to act as filler material. Though consider possibility that with the 45 day break until the Middle East shows and nearly 2.5 months until their Hong Kong and Seoul will be filled with some studio time to hammer out additional songs. Spring EP could still be on the table.

I'll expand that a little further. The controversial/divisive albums in hindsight are mostly vanilla, with some exceptions within MX and of course, Coloratura. It may not be the intent, but they "feel" built for "Chris and his backing band" playing in front of 50k stadiums. Nothing wrong with that, and those albums and subsequent tours have made the band millions of dollars but it's limited, musically The other set have a level of technicality and musical craft that simply make them more interesting during multiple relistens. I still love listening to Genesis and 40 years later still enjoy those moments where I catch rhythm changes, drum beat or piano chords that I missed before. Viva and Prospekts, EL, and MM reward you for those repeated listens. 45 days after MM was released I caught some section of iAAM that I missed before and now that may have jumped in the song rankings.

Pitchfork gave Rush of Blood a 5.1 and Parachutes a 5.3- getting a 6/10 seems slightly miraculous.

Coldplay bringing in orchestral instruments NEVER fails to sound good.

The seemingly effortless way they sampled other songs into this under the idea of it being what an "alien" would hear while spinning the dial in space is kind of inspired. I'm not a huge fan of the spoken word section but the journey of the song is worth it.

Since I can't find a Man In the Moon sub thread, I guess this is the place to admire it. It's a throwback to Viva/PM, gated reverb drum, enough key changes to make Tony Banks jealous, and Chris is nailing the vocals. If there was concern about Coldplay running out of ideas as they near the end I think those concerns can be shelved.

Dropping the Full Moon edition two days after the actual album is very strange, no doubt, and I can't tell if there's a strategy behind it. Even something like Flags was withheld from worldwide release for a year. MiTM, KK, and the alternate versions of the album cuts were perfect for an EP six months from now, as a Prospekts March type drop. Another hopeful option is that they're banking other material for MoTS 3 and this was just extra stuff from the MM sessions.

Oceans is a dynamite song and I could see it being a single after ASFOS.