Rating: NNN
Viva La Vida starts off with promise for fans who felt that X&Y was a far cry from A Rush Of Blood To The Head. Instrumental opener Life In Technicolor sounds like an updated snippet of Where The Streets Have No Name – which isn’t too surprising since Chris Martin and Co. employ Brian Eno here. Unfortunately, the rest of the record fails to build on this. Songs like Lost! and 42 have poppy parts but wrap up before anything mind-blowing happens (the lone refreshing exception is the shoegazey hidden track Chinese Sleep Chant). It’s possible that the quality of Coldplay songs is inversely proportional to Chris Martin’s happiness, meaning that we won’t be hearing anything as good as The Scientist until Gwyneth leaves him for Ashton Kutcher.
