Music : Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends (Gatefold Digipack)

Rating: - Their weakest album yet
Lets get this out of the way, this is a good album, and a hell of a load better than what bands like Keane or Snowpatrol could ever dream of producing... but come on, when you're one of the biggest bands on the planet with udles of wedge and Brian Eno behind the desk you better hope they made something half decent. But this is over-indulgent, try too hard, "think we're being different and innovative when in fact we're hitting a marching drum and dressing up as Napoleonic soldiers" self glorification.

What has happened to Coldplay? They seem to have forgotten how to write a good old fashioned song. Unlike their first two albums inparticular there's no emotion or heart to this album. You don't care about what Chris is singing about, to be honest you don't ever believe he really cares what he's singing about. There are some very fine musical moments but the really good bits are too short and under-developed. Come on boys, back to what you do best on the next album please. You're not Radiohead and no matter how much you wish you were you're never going to be that good, leave the funny stuff to them and get back to what you do best ... writing great songs. There's no shame in that.

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Rating: - Good but over-rated
A little disappointing after the commercial and audience friendly X & Y. Yes this is meant to be far more clever and experimental musically but many of the lyrics make little sense but over-reach themselves in scope. Similarly musically this album does the same, at times at the expense of melody. It's all just a little too Bruce Hornsby meets Joshua Tree in places -- both fine in themselves but a dated stab at reinvention now. Coldplay stick to the good melodies and heartfelt lyrics that you do best - Fix You, Trouble, Clocks etc and keep the experimentation to the electro meets indie pop aka Square One, that put anything on Kid A to shame, and that I was hoping would be the direction this venture would take. Alas no.

Good but definitely disappointing and the critics way off base - melody wins over clever everytime - people don't remember clever!!!

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Rating: - Lukewarm Coldplay
Forget Dave Lister, Chris Martin is the ultimate egg chilli-chutney sandwich guy. He sings through his nose, his albums contain more filler than a B&Q superstore, and he looks like he'd be more at home with a back-pack than a microphone, yet put it all together and it works; Coldplay are one of the biggest rock bands in the world, and he's married to Princess Gwen. Who cares if he makes the odd duff album?

Don't get me wrong, I loved Parachutes and A Rush of Blood was okay, so following universal aclaim for this album, I ignored the ultra pretentious title and sleeve and gave it a go. At first it sounded rather tedious, but I hoped things would improve after a few plays. In fairness they did, it went from tedious to so-so. Nothing to add to that really, in fact I'm bored thinking about it.

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Rating: - Very dissapointing...
I loved Cold Play's two first albums, I feel like I could get absorbed in them and never skip a track.

I have listened to this new album about 10 times and I just don't feel the same way about this album. When listening to this album I honestly say I enjoy about 3 of the songs, the rest well I really don't.

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Rating: - Yes, it's fashionable to slag them off...
... but that shouldn't be a deterrent. Let's be honest, they're good at what they do. No doubts about that. Talented - absolutely. They have carved a niche, actually more of a corner, in the market for plaintive songwriting and it's a time-tested and A&R trusted fact that this stuff sells by the truckload.

Frankly, if you've bought a Coldplay album before and liked it, you're probably going to like this one. If you already hate Coldplay, you're going to hate it. The fact is it's not going to make many new fans or new enemies - the band appear to have become the "through the looking glass" skewed mirror image of Radiohead. Whether that's a good thing or not depends on where your head's at.

Bringing in Eno is an interesting one - the guy's flirted with genius at the helm before (Remain in Light etc), but it doesn't work here. Doesn't exactly aid the U2 references either.

3 out of 5 as it's perfectly fine if you like this sort of stuff, but it ain't gonna convert ya if you don't.