Track List­ing:

1. Life in Technicolor
2. Ceme­ter­ies of London
3. Lost! **
4. 42
5. Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love **/**
6. Yes **
7. Viva la Vida **
8. Violet Hill
9. Straw­berry Swing
10. Death and All His Friends **

**Clear Favorites

There are a slew of hidden/extra tracks depend­ing on what ver­sion of Viva la Vida you have (buying from iTunes seems to be the best bet… assum­ing you pre-​ordered it). My ver­sion actu­ally has an extra track which is an acoustic ver­sion of Lost! enti­tled “Lost?” which I find fan­tas­tic. Track five (Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love) is actu­ally two tracks in one, and there are also two hidden tracks con­tained within “Yes” [Chi­nese Sleep Chant] and “Death and All His Friends” [The Escapist], making this a much fuller album than what one would ini­tially presume.

The best term I can use for this album is ’solid.’ From start to finish, It’s actu­ally quite an impres­sive listen. The music car­ries a cer­tain vibe through­out the entire album, which really uni­fies it into one extended expe­ri­ence. Their title track, “Viva la Vida” sends shiv­ers down my spine every time I hear it. Watch­ing the video blew my mind as well.

The tracks tend to alter­nate between harder and softer, but they all seem to lead into one another with a musi­cal polish that I’ve not heard from many albums. Obvi­ous care was put into track order­ing, blend­ing, and final touches. The album still car­ries that sooth­ing Cold­play feel that we’ve all come to know (if not actu­ally love) making every track sound very “Coldplayish.”

Inter­est­ing usage of instru­ments can be found through­out the album, prov­ing that they aren’t just a piano-​driven alter­na­tive band.. at least not any­more. Viva la Vida shows a lot more in the ways of exper­i­men­ta­tion instru­men­tally, though not much changes vocally. I’m not going to say whether that’s a good thing or not, because it really depends on your per­cep­tion. Per­son­ally I wish the vocals had been a bit more exper­i­men­tal so as to match the album, but I can’t com­plain about that.

What I can com­plain about (see what I did there?) is Violet Hill. This was the single debuted in my area (Toronto/London radio sta­tions) and it was played to hell. As it turns out this is also my least favorite track on the entire album by a long shot. I can’t really place why I dis­like it so much (read: over­play­ing) but if I had to take a stab at it, it would prob­a­bly be the attempt at telling a story in a near-​narrative format. I know they thought they were doing some­thing cool, but the result just hurts my head. If I could pre­tend that wasn’t on the album It would make it that much better.

Con­sid­er­ing my only real issue with the entire album is one track, I’d have to say that that give’s it a pretty solid score. It’s worth lis­ten­ing to, so long as you’re into the alter­na­tive scene, or you’re already a fan of Cold­play. If you’re as much a fan as I am/was it’s still worth lis­ten­ing to because I can assure you that you’ll have some new favorites to add your your song listing.

8.5/10