I’ve always been a semi fan of Coldplay. A lot of their material I like, a lot I hate. One of the funniest lines from Peep Show ever was “People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can’t trust people!” However I couldn’t wait to hear Coldplay’s much anticipated and incredibly catchy titled new album “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends“.

A copy arrived the other day, and on first listen I wasn’t that impressed. I’d already heard the title track and Violet Hill which on first listens I thought were both good songs, but as for the album, I felt it lacked something. I got to the last track and just thought “is that it?”

But I was aware that a lot of songs and albums take time to grow on me, so I put the album on my IPod and had it on rotation all weekend and I think it has finally clicked. Some observations… You need to listen to it from start to finish in the right order before it finally makes sense. For this reason I don’t think it’s very radio friendly, I can’t see how there can be many singles coming off of it. It’s very different to their previous work and I don’t think there are many anthemic tracks on it (no Scientists or Fix You’s).

The album is released on Thursday (randomly, most albums are released on Monday’s). But if you can’t wait till then, you can hear it all on their Myspace page. I would however warn, from past experience, it’s always nice to hear a brand new album in full proper CD quality and not being streamed off a Myspace page. So you may just want to wait till Thursday.

Best song on the album, Lost!

Conclusion. After the first listen I thought it was a bit of let down. After listen number 4 it is finally clicking into place. By listen number 8 it will probably be a stroke of genius.

David