Given the precarious state of the industry, thanks chiefly to scurvy online pirates, Warner – who took Parlophone off Universal’s hands last year – are eager to ensure their first big Coldplay release arrives in their own good time and no one else’s. Which means, for this writer, a solitary playback in their plush offices, and some digging for internet scraps. A pragmatic precaution perhaps, but it means you are pinning your hopes on the album being a shower rather than a grower. So take this not as a review, more as dispatches from an initial trip to the observation deck.
So what is Ghost Stories? Well, it’s a break-up record, but a very Coldplay break-up record. Written and recorded over the last two years as, the glossy mags that hang around my bathroom tell me, Chris Martin’s marriage to Gwyneth Paltrow fell apart, its title was apparently inspired by the singer’s worries that the “ghosts” of his past would harm his future.
Czech artist Mila Fürstová provides the cover, a set of angel wings that could double for a broken heart, which in itself is a very Coldplay sentiment: trying to find serenity in suffering.
Rather than rage, then, on their sixth outing, the London quartet choose to find the dignity – and sometimes even the prettiness – in regret. That means plenty of the polite-angst-with-universal-uplift that has made their name.
They’ve gone to new places, however: to IDM producer Jon Hopkins’ door for a lend of his trademark meditative ambience; and to Justin Vernon’s log cabin for some plaintive falsetto. The vocoder and echo-heavy ‘Midnight’ combines both, and is a laudable step outside their comfort zone. If the Bon Iver comparison has been overstated by now, it’s only because it can’t be denied.
That is the biggest experimentation – though, in general, they’ve scrubbed off the affected, gaudy sonic spray paint of the frankly naff Mylo Xyloto and managed not to hit a brick wall. The Edge-ish stadium guitars have been put down for now, as piano and synth dominate. The band can occasionally seem somewhat relegated, as Martin works through his issues; on the other hand, they have brought songs to the table for the first time. The quite lovely ‘Magic’ was built on a Guy Berryman bassline and the rhythm section excel in a deceptive, effective way on it, as indeed they do elsewhere.
Martin’s melodies are simple and sometimes circular, as he employs repetitive verses and fluid shifts rather than the singalong choruses of hithertofore. It recalls career highlight ‘Clocks’, though nothing here quite reaches those heights on a first encounter. On a track like ‘Another’s Arms’, buoyed by an angelic female vocal hook, it works excellently: Martin’s voice and heart are both sinking, his head disappearing into his own shirt as he sighs lines about the loneliness of “late night watching TV.”
It’s one of the rare occasions where he is direct. Lyrically, he’s never claimed to be up there with Shakespeare. On Ghost Stories, there’s fire, oceans, birds in the sky and “something broke”. For the second album in a row, he cribs a Leonard Cohen line – though in truth you’d prefer him to tell us personally “what’s really going on below.” For the most part, Chris sounds like he’s curled up in the foetal position on the studio floor.
A short album, it climaxes with the Avicii-produced ‘A Sky Full Of Stars’, as Coldplay shake off the sadness and embrace the elusive good things in life. Finally, we have a sky-scraping chorus, delivered as the band mine the EDM seam they explored on ‘Paradise’. It’s a curious twist, as it seems to almost negate what’s gone before and feels like a radio hit, delivered for the average fan. Closer ‘O’ casts no new light.
All in all, on a first listen, Ghost Stories is an agreeable, if relatively uncontroversial experience. Listeners who left after Parachutes might even find comparisons with that great debut. If ghost stories are intended to be an enjoyable diversion before bed time, they’ve succeeded. If you’re looking for an adrenaline rush or big reveal, however, this is probably not the place to find it.