The announcement that Coldplay’s fifth record was to be lumbered with the semi-unprononouncable moniker Mylo Xyloto prompted the usual suspects on Twitter to observe that the band – all apparently comfortably married, and allegedly verging on being middle-aged gadzillionaires – were now letting their kids pick their album titles.
Further investigation did little to assuage the concern that, at the point where they should be making their Acthung Baby or Automatic For The People, Coldplay might just have skipped ahead, slipping straight into mid-career bloat. Ominously, you might say, Mylo Xyloto had been resurrected from the bones of two uncompleted concept projects, the first an electronica record, the second a largely acoustic undertaking. Were we being fed sloppy seconds?
Meanwhile, in interviews, Chris Martin was talking up the ‘narrative arch’ which binds the 14 tracks together. Does anything chill the blood quite like the idea of Coldplay – a band whose greatest charm is their cuddly lack of pretension – going all Downward Spiral on our asses? Surely the world requires a Coldplay concept album about as badly as it needs Gwyneth Paltrow playing a drunken country rock singer in a bad Walk The Line rip-off?
Those apprehensions prove to be totally false and unnecessary. The reality is both more modest and far more engaging. Unfathomable name aside, Mylo Xyloto represents a step away from the strained experimentalism of 2008’s Viva La Vida, a project that wanted so hard to be clever it ended up giving itself a migraine (but was nonetheless the year’s biggest-selling record). With Arcade Fire wingman Markus Dravs producing and Brian Eno given an executive credit for ‘enofication’, Mylo may swim in occasionally strange waters, but it is at all times concerned not to frighten the fish. The end result is a record that is enormously listenable.
Much of the pre-release attention has centered on the Rihanna hook-up ‘Princess Of China’, and it does present a powerful argument that, alone amongst their stadium peers, only Coldplay have a real gift for throwaway pop. Can you imagine U2 – or god, forbid – Radiohead dabbling in bubblegum R&B? With warm beats lapping his toes and Ri-Ri burbling gamely in the background, Martin, in contrast, sounds perfectly within his comfort zone. It’s like watching your dad take to the dancefloor only to discover he’s one heck of a body popper. You came to giggle, and end up breaking into spontaneous applause.
Elsewhere the biggest surprise is how incidental a presence Martin often feels. His occasisonal Bono-isms are only really an issue on the loping ‘Paradise’ – and even then an ‘Umbrella’ style fade-out keeps the bombast at bay. He proceeds cautiously through ‘Up In Flames’, which, with its wump-wump tempos, might be described as stadium dubstep, and manages not to get tripped up on the dinner party rave of ‘Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall’, wherein Coldplay attempt to rewrite ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ in the style of early Elbow. Thankfully it works.
Heckled through their career for being a poor man’s Radiohead, Martin and cohorts have responded perfectly by recording a full-blooded, intermittently stonking pop album, up to its tonsils in glimmering dance beats and luscious hooks. Approached with an open mind, there’s plenty here to enjoy.