Coldplay
Everyday Life
Parlophone
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It feels like only yesterday that the world was swaying to the vibrant, technicolored tunes of Coldplay’s A Head Full Of Dreams (2015). But four years have passed since their seventh studio album arrived and the world has shifted into a more complex, chaotic and confronting place. If A Head Full Of Dreams is all brash and bright, their new release Everyday Life is colored with more muted earthy tones. It’s an anthropological dig into the human condition set against a cultural landscape that is constantly shifting.
Presented as a double-album comprised of two themes, ‘Sunrise’ and ‘Sunset,’ this notion seems more idealistic than practical, considering most listen to the album in our digital age of run-on playlists. So while the concept might be lost on most and, at worst, redundant, the album does divide into two distinct sets of moods. The first eight tracks held within ‘Sunrise’ are reflective and point to the challenges of modern life, whereas the second collection that falls under ‘Sunset’ start to eek in a glimmer of hope and resolve.
And there’s plenty of highlights to be heard in each themed side.
With its beautiful and sorrowful strings, album-opener “Sunrise” sets the tone for the first half of the project that is reflected in songs like the quiet and disconcerting storm of “Trouble In Town,” which contains audio lifted from an escalating confrontation between a police officer and driver. The song swirls in drama and chaos before returning to a quiet resolve that, much like the audio clip, leaves things unanswered, open-ended. It’s a song with a message, not a song with an answer.
The gospel piano and choir inspired “BrokEn” (the En a nod to producer Brian Eno, who introduced frontman Chris Martin to the gospel music) is intimate and inviting and gives the album a moment of uplift. Contrast this with the forlorn yearning of “Daddy” written from a child’s point of view that pangs with abandonment and a desire to connect.
Lots of real world sounds permeate the album like in the straight-from-voice-memo to acoustic recording “WOTW / POTP” and as interludes to main musical moments. It gives the listener a feeling of strolling the streets or space environments and stumbling upon the songs, like the stellar “Arabesque” with its jangling guitar line and Afrobeat tinged groove. A murky parade of swirling sax (courtesy of Femi Kuti) and bubbling tension, it achieves a delicate balance between the unity in the lyrics and the despair and quiet paranoia of the music as Martin despairs for those who see others as a threat, concluding “We share the same blood.”
The first half ends with the solemn “When I Need A Friend,” a choral arrangement that envelops the listener in warm tones, providing a sense of comfort that we are all in this together.
The second phase ‘Sunset’ kicks off with the rollicking acoustic “Guns” where Martin riles against the ferocious appetite for firearms and fear-inducing cultural climate that suggests that the only way to protect oneself is to arm oneself, and so the cyclical nature goes on. It’s a short, punchy tune that bristles with urgency and sadly will remain ever so relevant.
Hope arrives with “Orphans,” a rousing classic Coldplay track trussed up on an addictive Berryman bass run and soaring Buckland guitar licks. The song identifies with the plight of the refugee and the displaced, who long for a sense of normalcy and escape from the adversity thrust upon them with a chorus that cries out, “I wanna know when I can go / back and feel home again.”
The second half has several close, intimate moments that let Martin croon his way through the songs to create a calming mood. Prime examples include the sparse “Eko” and “Old Friends,” as well as moments of experimentation present within “بنی آدم (Children of Adam)” that features a spoken word piece drawn from the Saadi Shirazi poem “Son of Adam” and the throwback doo-wop feel of “Cry Cry Cry” featuring Jacob Collier.
The final pair of songs are perhaps the most Coldplay-ish and most uplifting. “Champion Of The World” with its sing-song guitar strains was inspired by an Owl John song “Los Angeles, Be Kind” and achieves the underdog anthem quality the band was aiming for in its creation. The titular album closer “Everyday Life” is a piano-led saunter through the concerns of the album, those of love, displacement, struggles, unity and ultimately hope as Martin sings, “Gotta keep dancing when the lights go out.” It’s a song of promise and faith that tomorrow is a new day. And it can be a better one.
All told, Everyday Life is an album of exploration, a wandering excursion of sound and tone, of feeling and reflection. It doesn’t have as many immediate show stoppers as we’ve been fed in the past, rather it offers a more subtle and scaled back approach to presenting its messages. It pushes Coldplay into new areas comfortably and ends up being an album that has you discovering new favorite songs in the most organic of ways.
Notable Tracks: "Arabesque" | “Everyday Life” | "Orphans" | “Trouble In Town”
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