Current mood:	ecstatic
Current music:	Coldplay - "Death and All His Friends"
Entry tags:	coldplay

Viva La Vida! (or Death and All His Friends)
Okay, so I've been listening to VLV for the past three days (and, in addition, Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief by Radiohead, both of which I recently obtained), but VLV is definitely the best of the three so far. I really hate to say this so soon, but I think it might be Coldplay's best album. It doesn't have a weak song, unlike their previous three. Violet Hill is a song I've never been a huge fan of, but it's still very listenable. Parachutes was an extremely solid album, and A Rush of Blood to the Head had spectacular songs, while X&Y expanded their musical pallete - VLV is a perfect combination of the three. This feels like the album I have been WAITING for Coldplay to make.

And it's such an uplifting album! I mean, it's got its moments of haunted beauty, but it never seems like everything's gone to hell - on Parachutes, We Never Change, and Sparks, on AROBTTH, Warning Sign and The Scientist, on X&Y, The Hardest Part and Swallowed by the Sea. VLV's songs are just as gorgeous and with their moments of pessimism, but as a whole it feels like a much more optimistic album. I think the best way to sum it up is a line from Strawberry Swing - "It's such a perfect day."

Eno and Dravs did wonders producing this. It sounds like U2 and Arcade Fire, obviously, but better. Buckman has really gone all Edge on this, not that I'm complaining. X&Y, I thought, suffered from really sketchy production - songs like Low, White Shadows, and What If were bogged down with this just soggy synthesized sound that really didn't work. The Hardest Part had the same kind of production, but it overcame it. What made it so frustrating was that X&Y, Twisted Logic, Fix You - the production on those was perfect! This album is much more consistent, and much more beautiful than anything they've ever done.

I'm so happy right now. Thank God for Coldplay. Radiohead did their bit with In Rainbows, and now Coldplay's done theirs with VLV. Focus is on you, Oasis! That album this fall better be damn good to live up to my expectations now!