Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone Records
Release: 2011
Length: 44:12
Rating: 3.5/5
What is there even left to say when Coldplay drop a new studio album? These guys have pretty much done it all in the music business, so they hardly need some hair-splittingly calibrated, sprawling intro that would rattle the magnetic poles of planet Earth, right? The neat opening verdict is this: with “Mylo Xyloto”, Coldplay have put out a different album that’s at the same time typical in every way – a proper Coldplay album.
Not at all pretentious in probing the limits of the “creative” self, the way the bombast-heavy “Viva La Vida” (2009) did. Coldplay went at it more basically this time. The extended collaboration with musical mentor Brian Eno, though, has so far given them, with “Mylo Xyloto”, the sonically most polished album in their discography.
Coldplay are simply those alt-rock lads who managed to sell their whole musical package, look included, so well that they won over the yuppies and raked in millions of greenbacks. Truth is, nothing terrible ever happens in their lives. They’re not ragged, starving or freezing either. “Mylo Xyloto” keeps that essence going. It’s a concept album, you see. A love story with a happy ending winds through it. Insightful, huh? Looking for Einstein in Coldplay is of course a utopian pursuit.
Minimalism – short, concise, relaxed strokes of stringing a soundscape together – is the language of Coldplay’s music. It stays dominant this time too. That’s what the guys know how to do, and that’s where they’re strongest. In most songs, which are seasoned with major keys, the shape of the lead melodies is blanketed by that typically icy embrace of atmosphere that makes Coldplay, as players of a “cold game”, unmistakable.
The basic melody the quartet builds is precisely and carefully dressed in the latest know-how of the big studio masters of sound sculpting. The lead vocal run through effects sounds surreal, the guitar is measured out to just a few notes but, through emphasized sonic contrasts, spread across the spectrum into a skillful creation of a special fusion of electronics and rock. Not only in the chorus crescendos but especially in the calm songs, where acoustic guitar also thickens the backing, guru Brian Eno’s stringing together of “soundscapes” comes through – he has more than obviously made friends with the quartet. The standout track in this respect is the one where Coldplay come closest to pop. Not because the guest duet comes courtesy of the desirable “pop lollipop” Rihanna, but simply because of the arrangement, where the guitars, under Eno’s sonic manipulation, are buried to the point that they work only as an extra spice and not as the lead instrument of the backing. Princess Of China is an example of a track that could easily find a home on Rihanna’s next studio album too.
The calm Us Against The World, which went through less studio manipulation (“upgrading”), exposes the hole in Chris Martin’s vocal delivery. Plain and simple. The lowest registers at times just “swallow” his voice. In the intro of the closing Up With The Birds, Martin can barely hold on to his credibility in the lower range. Well. He was never famed as a great singer, so his vocal works best when it’s run through effects, or surrounded by the harmonizing of programmed sound loops, as well as when harmonized with backing vocals.
Since Coldplay are “soft” rockers who, with their commercial achievements, challenge the biggest MTV pop export products (one such was mentioned in one of the paragraphs above), it’s only logical there’s no way back for them. So every detail has to be thought through! “Mylo Xyloto” confirms that, whatever the new ideas and new songs of the quartet, the bulk of the brainpower behind the final product comes from “legionnaires” that Coldplay can simply buy. And with that they also buy their own “brains” a few extra twists that give the band and its basic talent their true value in the final picture.
“Mylo Xyloto” is a lovely, top-quality album that will suit everybody’s taste. First and foremost, it has shut the mouth of the greedy music industry, which got such a high-quality alt-rock product packed with hits. In their simple starting template, these carry compositions that above all seek a melodically low excitation threshold of subcutaneous seductiveness toward the listener – a guarantee that Coldplay will keep filling arenas and stadiums worldwide wholesale. Full of sonic and arranging savvy, Hurts Like Heaven, Paradise, Charlie Brown, Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall, Princess Of China or Don’t Let It Break Your Heart can’t be faulted in any way. True, everything “Mylo Xyloto” brings once again drapes a veil of influences from role-model bands, from U2 (mostly the guitar motifs again, and in places the vocals), R.E.M. (“jangle” tricks), to the electronic, spacey dreaminess of Radiohead and/or Muse, yet those influences at the same time only add a welcome spice to the melting pot of ideas. With Coldplay that has always been the rule.
So Coldplay keep up the look of innocent cocker spaniels who only meekly, with bleeding hearts, eye their sugar cube, never bark, let alone bite. And that’s the main trump card for winning over the masses. The guys have wisely held on to their “cinnamon breathiness” and sent to market a product that went through the most detailed sonic combing, which on the other hand gives off a sense of the band maturing. An album of hits, an album of high listenability, an album of expressive quality that can’t be faulted, and last but not least an album that will effectively keep Coldplay at the top of the (commercially) most successful rock bands of the new era.
Line-up
Chris Martin – vocals, guitar, keyboards
Jonny Buckland – guitar
Guy Berryman – bass guitar
Will Champion – drums
Production
Mark Dravs, Daniel Green & Rick Simpson
Track list
1. Mylo Xyloto (0:42)
2. Hurts Like Heaven (4:02)
3. Paradise (4:38)
4. Charlie Brown (4:45)
5. Us Against the World (4:00)
6. M.M.I.X. (0:48)
7. Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall (4:01)
8. Major Minus (3:30)
9. U.F.O. (2:18)
10. Princess of China (3:58)
11. Up in Flames (3:13)
12. A Hopeful Transmission (0:33)
13. Don’t Let It Break Your Heart (3:54)
14. Up with the Birds (3:46)
GUEST MUSICIANS
Rihanna – vocals on track no. 10
