Album of the week: Coldplay

COLDPLAY: VIVA LA VIDA OR DEATH AND ALL HIS FRIENDS

**

PARLOPHONE, £11.99

IT IS AN occupational hazard for small independent labels that they might sink or swim on the success of a particular album release. But you know a band occupies a whole other commercial stratosphere when the release of their new album is tied up with the future fortunes of a multinational record label. In simple rockspeak, if this album doesn't sell, The Man gets it. Quite a dilemma for Coldplay fans, particularly if they subscribe to Chris Martin's anti-corporate feed-the-world views.

It probably doesn't help EMI's beleaguered bank balance that Martin and his cohorts keep giving their fans free handouts. Like their fellow socialist millionaire rock stars Radiohead, Coldplay have happily hitched themselves to the giveaway bandwagon. Although you have to pay for the physical or downloaded album, you can currently listen to it for free on their MySpace page, where it has been streaming for the past week. You may also already have taken advantage of the free download of the album's first single, Violet Hill, or have won tickets for the free gigs at Brixton Academy and Madison Square Gardens.

In their publicity shots, the mild-mannered foursome are even dressed up in sans-culottes revolutionary chic, ready to storm the barricades. The title of their fourth album (meaning "long live life") was cribbed off a Frida Kahlo painting and it is scrawled like insurrectionist graffiti over the Delacroix painting, Liberty Leading the People, they have reproduced on the sleeve. Liberté! Egalité! More of the same old half-baked pseudo-anthems and sixth-form philosophy lyrics!

Viva La Vida has been three years in the making, most of that arguably searching for inspiration that never materialised. The band have spoken about being "anthemed-out" after X&Y, an album they are not so fond of these days. But in the push to experiment, the mooted Timbaland collaboration didn't come off – a pity, because the very mind-boggling prospect of that pairing would at least have ensured something more intriguing than this safe, timid collection. In the end, Viva La Vida has been smoothly produced by Brian Eno, which won't do anything to quell the "nouveau U2" perception of the band, and Neon Bible engineer Markus Dravs, which might explain why opening instrumental Life In Technicolor features some trademark Arcade Fire backing chanting.

The story goes that in its full original form, this track was tagged as a potential single by the record company so the band swiftly divested it of its vocal track. Sticking it to The Man, eh? Or an act of pointless sabotage? You can get an idea of what it might have sounded like right at the end of the album where it forms the basis of an uncredited track, The Escapist.

In the space between, Coldplay have produced an album which may ravish those who continue to get something out of their aimless anthems and rudimentary platitudes but will just sound like the same old insipid mewling to non-believers.

They have difficulty honouring their anthem-eschewing intentions right from the start. Cemeteries of London's mountainous drums, tribal chanting and ethereal, quasi-gothic guitar jangling simply recalls early U2 by way of The Mission's Tower of Strength.

The slightly ploddy Lost is typical Coldplay filler, featuring one of Martin's thought-for-the-day lyrics: "Just because I'm losing doesn't mean I'm lost… just because I'm hurting doesn't mean I'm hurt." He is still lamely philosophising on 42 (which we know already as the answer to life, the universe and everything). This rather simplistic meditation on bereavement boasts a soothing, languorous Dark Side of the Moon-style opening, then a pacier, dynamic middle section before Martin returns to caress his keyboard in the dying moments.

In the hopes that the listener will rate value for money over musical excellence, the band have segued tracks on two separate occasions. Yes, featuring Indian instrumentation as window-dressing, is paired with the 80s jangle of Chinese Sleep Chant.

Meanwhile, the opening half of Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love has the vaguest hint of oriental flavour and references Osaka at one point, but is primarily a showcase for the soaring guitar sound which is already all over the Coldplay back catalogue and the kind of embarrassing "inspirational" lyrics which always sound better when sung guilelessly by a big festival crowd.

The title track is a far more eloquent affair, exploring the ephemeral nature of empire. Yup, it sure is tough at the top, isn't it Chris? Better still, it boasts the best chorus on the album and is the one track which could stand up beside Coldplay's best efforts.

Appropriately for an album which broods on life and the afterlife so much, Viva La Vida bows out with the delicate folksy ballad Death and All His Friends, a moment of quiet reflection among the banal stadium-filling gestures which rattle around the rest of this disappointing collection.