Music Review: Viva La Vida / Death And All His Friends - Coldplay

Coldplay is back. After three years of gap, they are back with their new album Viva La Vida or Death and all his friends. And I am back too. After a gap of almost one month, I am limping back to Blogosphere. I moved out of Arizona and settled in New Jersey and the entire process drained me out completely and took a toll on my blogging. But nevertheless, I am back to writing.

The album was released in USA on 17th June and though as an ardent Coldplay fan, I should have pre-ordered it, I have it within the first week of release now. Now coming to the main point of review of the album. The album is a classic experimental piece. It is a typical Coldplay work. Unusual and different from anything else you have heard. It is undoubtedly more experimental and exotic than their previous albums.

The first song "Life in Technicolor" is exactly what it says. It's an instrumental piece which invokes colorful and upbeat feelings. Beginning slowly, soon the music erupts in euphoric sounds of piano and guitar, familiar to Coldplay fans.

"Cemeteries of London" invokes mixed feelings dominated by sadness. 'Lost!' and the bonus track 'Lost?' both are pretty good. The 'Lost!' is better in my opinion as the other one lacks beats and the second half flaunts some real good guitar sounds. '42' and 'Lovers in Japan' both are typical Alternative Rock songs.

'Yes' is a brilliant experiment. It features some classic Violin tunes. 'Viva La Vida' features some pretty enigmatic lyrical genius and the lines are wide open to your own interpretation. The song is one of the more accessible ones in this album.

'Violet Hill' is one of my most favorite ones from the album. The vocals are the main highlight of the song along with guitar in the latter half of the song. 'Strawberry swing' is not very attractive but a good piece to listen to in idle time and it is catchy too for humming the tune. 'Death and all his friends' is a mixture of lot of different sounds, tunes and beats. It feels as if they have composed 3-4 songs in one and still made it sound beautiful.

So all-in-all, the album is worth the wait of 3 years and the price I paid for it. In fact more than that. A zillion thanks to Coldplay for maintaining their standards and even improving every time. Thumbs up to Viva La Vida!

The wait begins for the next Coldplay release!