Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto
"Every Teardop is a Waterfall" and "Paradise" are a seriously impressive pair of singles in doing everything which Coldplay have done so well in recent times (they're BIG) while simultaneously integrating new elements and setting them up as just a tiny bit closer to a mainstream pop sound. It's a shame that "Princess of China" feels too underwritten to make full use of Rihanna's appearance and doesn't complete the hat trick.
The rest of the album doesn't offer much in the way of big surprises (there are still impassioned choruses, lyrics which could politely be called impressionistic, guitars which sound a bit U2) but is no retread with the surging pop of "Hurts Like Heaven" difficult to imagine existing in its current form on previous albums too.
Mylo Xyloto is also much more coherent than Viva La Vida, stitched together with a series of lovely little instrumental interludes and seamlessly builds in (presumably Eno-influenced) moments of ambient prettiness. It sounds consistently gorgeous, with a rich sound even on the slower songs like "Us Against The World" where Viva La Vida sometimes sounded thin (That song shows off the deeper end of Chris Martin's vocal range to good effect, too).
I have a long history with the band that makes it a bit difficult for me to look at them in anything approaching an objective way, but if they'd continued on the compressed, ultra-serious anthems of X&Y I think I might still have fallen out of love with them completely. So I'm really happy that they've found a way to succeed while doing more than that. Though I kind of wish they'd found room for the ridiculous (yet strangely poignant!) space-prog of B-side "Moving to Mars". Maybe more like that next time?
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