Coldplay are back and they’ve re-branded: from now on you shall know them as Air Traffic. Facetious, yes, but only up to a point. The Bournemouth quartet have obviously been reading the Big Book Of Rock-In-Earnest (authors Chris Martin and Tom Bell) in preparation for this, their debut album. It’s a record of bug-eyed angst, piano-led epiphany and estuary Englishness. And whilst songs such as ‘Shooting Star’, ‘No More Running Away’ and ‘Your Fractured Life’ artfully reprise the style of the masters, they remain essentially minor works.
However, there are moments, when they stray from the path to sincerity-ville, that Air Traffic threaten to find their own musical identity. Alongside their big indie ambition, they do a nice little line in raucous piano-versus-guitar jive – note the rather wonderful ‘I Like That’. Even better is the glam-tinged ‘Never Even Told Me Her Name’, the guitar sounding like a spanked bottom, drums like cracked vertebrae and piano tinkling a la Jools Holland on amphetamines. ‘Charlotte’, meanwhile, finds Chris Wall leading the charge with the command “Your face, my place”, as the listener is impaled on the song’s ferocious guitar hooks. And finally, with ‘Empty Space’, they manage to summon the depth of feeling you suspect they’ve been striving for all along.
In its fragmented nature, Fractured Life is an aptly named album. Certainly there is genuine songwriting talent here. And derivative as it may sound, there is enough to suggest that they may just grow into their own voice next time out.