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When did the tide activate Coldplay? Over the previous decade, the British band have gone from nationwide whipping boy, sneered at for his or her edgeless model of anthemic pop-rock, to re-ascendent bastions of the trade. When the Chris Martin-fronted outfit headlined Glastonbury earlier this 12 months for the fifth time, it was hailed as a triumph. However the Coldplay Dwell Present Expertise™ is one factor, girdled as it’s by deft gimmickry (shock friends, light-up wristbands, and a hi-tech laser show that will make George Lucas baulk). Their new album Moon Music, nevertheless, affords no dazzling gentle present. It’s simply music and lyrics. And that’s an issue.
By some means indulgent and featherlight without delay, Coldplay’s 10-track ode to the Unifying Energy of Love looks like psychedelia as imagined by a person whose drug of alternative is vanilla extract. Songs are lyrically underwritten, pretentiously packaged, and too typically bookended by stretches of lilting, soporific atmosphere. Such is the case on “MOON MUSiC”, a pleasantly ethereal Jon Hopkins collaboration that yields to some jingly arpeggiated piano and smooth, low singing – gently scraping on the concrete beneath Martin’s vocal consolation zone.
Martin’s voice is sharper on “feelslikeimfallinginlove” – one of many album’s higher songs, and precisely the type of serotonin-pumped pop that Coldplay have aced prior to now. However there’s no getting across the banality of the lyrics, these threadbare clichés and clunky turns of phrase (“Child, it’s my thoughts you blow”). The decision-and-response bridge part sees Martin fill out his melody with a full line of “La’s” – one thing he does repeatedly throughout the report. Elsewhere, “We Pray” incorporates “Viva La Vida”-esque strings alongside an overbearing glut of featured artists: Little Simz; Burna Boy, Palestinian-Chilean musician Elyanna, and Argentinian singer Tini.
Different tracks fare even worse, platitudinously reiterating one very fundamental theme: ain’t love grand? “All the nice good emotions/ Don’t ever allow them to go,” Martin sings advert nauseam on the funky and uptempo “GOOD FEELiNGS”. A observe titled “iAAM” strains for that stadium-ready sound, however, in its melodious, barely syncopated refrain, makes chop suey of its metaphors: “Stood on a sea of ache/ Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain/ I’ll be again on my toes once more/ ‘trigger I’m a mountain.” Standing on a sea? Mountains with toes? What do you imply you’re “again in your toes” whenever you’ve actually simply advised us you’re standing up? Possibly somebody will argue that that is some type of poetic contradiction – to me, it looks as if doggerel.
In the meantime, “JUPiTER”, a barely extra pared-back narrative music a few queer lady going through homophobia, is sort of repellent in its unfettered schmaltz. “It’s a battle to your music,” Martin sings. “You needed to cover away for thus lengthy/ After they say ‘your self is flawed’/ The orchestra of rainbows play.”
Eagle-eyed readers can have observed above that the letter “i” is uniformly decrease case within the in any other case principally capped-up music titles. (Do you reckon there’s some tYpOgRaPhIc sYmBoLiSm there?) There’s additionally a observe merely titled “🌈”. I can solely assume these thrives are a part of Martin’s efforts to contrive an avant-garde mixed-media bonus observe: the sound of 1,000,000 listeners rolling their eyes without delay.
It’s arduous to criticise Moon Music with out sounding like a depressing cynic, given the album’s bald-faced ethos of goodwill and positivity. However love is a sophisticated factor, and it requires extra eloquence than Martin and co are capable of present.
