Shareholders Of The World Unite.

Well. Here it is. The CD that will singlehandedly save EMI and save their shareholders from having to sell their second yacht. And? Pressure weighs heavy on young egos. Thankfully the film-star-marriage, the Steven Spielberg father-in-law, fatherhood and sports cars hasn’t tempered their abilities. In fact, barring a slight extra sheen on the production, there isn’t anything to indicate that Coldplay are now a huge corporation with a multimillion turnover. 

To be frank, when they started Coldplay were, like many others, another Great White Indie Hope that had talent lesser than the ambitions of their labels. With time, though, Coldplay have grown into themselves. Whilst not a stone-dead every-song-a-classic that “A Rush Of Blood To The Head” was, “X & Y” is another artful, sensitive, well-spoken package of mild melancholy.

Make no mistake, “X & Y” is mildly bland. There’s nothing offensive, in fact, there’s it’s so inoffensive it’s almost offensive. Almost. It’s a collection of consistent, melodic songs with sometimes little in the way of personality and often much in the way of big gestures. For them then, the widescreen vistas of sincereity. If it were a movie, “X & Y” would be a treatise on the fall out of a relationship directed by Oliver Stone. Subtle subject matter occasionally bludgeoned by big gestures.

But when it works, when this unlikely combination meets and the chemistry sparks, then “X & Y” is more than the sum of it’s parts by some enormous margin. “Fix You” and “What If” are songs that simultaneously cut to the core of what it is to be alive and wrap the mundane in the poetry of mystery. “Speed of Sound”, despite sounding a little like the Police,  is the whole album – melancholia, joy, and clean, flat surfaces of hope – in one six minute package.

The albums best moment is perhaps it’s most surprising. After a short gap, the song that Coldplay wrote for Johnny Cash “Til The Kingdom Come” is ushered in, and were the Man In Black around to sing it, it would be a classic to rival any of his final recordings. As it stands, “Til The Kingdom Come” is a stylistic-departure that opens the abilities of Coldplay to depths they have previously only hinted at.

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