Coldplay: Viva La Vida (Death & All His Friends)
After a long time, some real music from Coldplay! Ever since X&Y hit the stands and people were raving its music and themes and lyrics (and what all can be said of it), I was feeling if Coldplay might be over rated sooner than (even they) might have expected.
With Viva La Vida, they have come up with lots of Rock blended with techno, symphony and melodies.. some so sombre but so lively.. it is this kind of music that is really tough to gage. An average critic can't really put it in place.. same music, even an average fan will put it in his high aisles. I am not a critic and not a fan, of Coldplay in particular, but I am a worshiper of music.
If I say first itself that I am not a critic, it saves me of writing anything technically because I can't do exactly that. Still, there will not be a single line which spares of my passion for music.
Viva La Vida has all it takes for a great album. It uses excellent use of technology for mixing the sounds to perfection. Ah! Sounds! Chris Martin's voice is modulating to the rhythm of each song that you don't feel its over the instruments neither its drowned by the music. In Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love, Coldplay has its music cut to perfection. There is so much in the drum beats that you feel like not listening to anything else and put it in prime place.
In Cemeteries of London, you got all the adrenaline rushes with Chris Martin's vein throbbing voice gives it and which is accentuated by the chorus. Then you have the beautiful thrumming of guitar so much in tune with the song!! It is a beauty. Life in Technicolor is just another piece of work that doesn't inspire much but just makes you feel that, Oh yes, this isColdplay right!
Then in Yes! You will be entirely confused. Each piece of instrument is a work on its own, just like if you put all the legends of cricket and make a team of it, you might wonder who will be the captain!Its harmony is so good that you will feel like you are in semi reality.
42 is a song which starts like (that) Lennon song. Hey that is a compliment. No. Coldplay gives it an identity in a few seconds by. And you are left saying, is it not Coldplay. Then comes the bass and guitars...it just puts your senses in swords end. You end up listening to each discord to find the beats in it.
Come Violet Hill and you feel like you are in past..history. I felt like all those scenes in war movies, where there is lull in war and no sound is there..these were the feelings I got. May be not the same for everyone, but everyone will get some kind of feel for sure. The Viva La Vida didn't inspire the same feel in me though it could have easily made me feel it with its lyrics. Death.. has all the fineness needed in its lyrics but somehow the music let it down.
The best song of the lot is Lost!. The opening itself sets it apart from the rest of the songs. It is like the diamond in the easter egg, it just outshines other songs. It doesn't have that much ups and downs in sound neither in lyrics but the feel is so good, you feel like it was a perfect day at the end of the day's work!
All the songs have so different feels in the span of play that if you close your eyes and hear it for first time and someone asks you how many songs were there, you might say 30 or maybe 40 or maybe 37, but then the number is irrelevant, its the feel in each. Its not discord nor its diversified from the theme, it is harmonized to dot, it is like a rainbow. Each of the song might be an ode to the theme expressed in the title itself but then each song has so much life that I felt it is an ode to life.
Coldplay might be the best that came out of UK in recent times, after this album, Hopefully they can re-invent in every song.
Toast to music!!
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