Coldplay
Everyday Life

Loved and hated in equal measure by fans and casual listeners worldwide, Coldplay have managed to make every new release a big event.

In the case of the two previous releases before this new "Everyday Life" (eighth studio album), the modus operandi has changed: "Ghost Stories" from 2014 was a minimal, intimate album, a hybrid between a return to the origins and a look to the future, and it worked so well that it turned out to be one of the best efforts by the band led by Chris Martin. The subsequent "A Head Full Of Dreams" (released just a year later), on the other hand, shook everything up with a decisive and at long stretches questionable shift towards commercial pop, as if there was a lack of courage to make a clear decision on what future to give to such a high-profile band.

And now? The new indecisive attitude seems to have become a habit: it's rumored that by 2020, the popular British band will already release another album more oriented towards the masses compared to this "Everyday Life," which indeed brings Coldplay back to a more intimate and less accommodating dimension. And it works well, again.

All things considered, it had been since the acclaimed "Viva La Vida..." that such a strong sense of freedom could be felt in a record by the British band; "Everyday Life" is, in fact, structured like a double album, with a first part called "Sunrise" and a second "Sunset." The tracks that most recall the stadium sound of the latest Coldplay are confined to the beginning of the first record and the end of the second: after a gloomy "Sunrise" with the violins of our Davide Rossi taking center stage, "Church" opens with syncopated percussion and an arrangement reminiscent of Moby's "Porcelain," and it wouldn't have been out of place at all in the tracklist of "Viva La Vida...".

"Trouble In Town" starts delicately between piano and light electric guitar embellishments, recalling the never forgotten "A Rush Of Blood To The Head"; after a sample that certifies the very political and personal nature of the new project (it's about a police aggression against a suspect, a file that has been circulating online for a while), the track explodes in what is the only truly rock moment of the album, with Buckland launching into an insistent solo and Will Champion decisively hitting the drums. Towards the end of "Sunset," instead, we find the excessively Coldplay-esque "Champion Of The World" and the beautiful closing for piano and voice of the title track and third single, vaguely reminiscent of a criminally underrated album (even by the band itself) like "X&Y".

In between, Martin and company span and finally free themselves from the self-imposed stadium chains of recent times: from classic gospel ("BrokEn") to a cappella singing ("When I Need A Friend"), from wild folk for guitar and voice alone in the very political "Guns" to the funky collaboration with Stromae "Arabesque" (a piece dating back to the "Mylo Xyloto" sessions, in which Femi Kuti also participates with his sax). And then the lo-fi in the style of the very first solo Graham Coxon in the purposefully incomplete and raw sketch "WOTW / POTP," up to the long-awaited return to the intimacy of "Parachutes" style in tracks like "Daddy" (beautiful), "Èkó", and "Old Friends". "Cry Cry Cry" even plays with doo-wop and "بنی آدم" ventures into U2 "Achtung Baby" era territories (with a beautiful piano solo that Martin had already presented live nine years ago, trailing a performance of "Trouble" at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool).

The only out-of-place track is the single "Orphans," a well-constructed yet pandering tune suitable for stadiums with its classic "uuh uuuh"; unsurprisingly, it was written and recorded at the last minute during the album's mixing, probably to have a credible single for the radio.

A lot on the plate for a nice comeback. The main question is: will Coldplay manage to free themselves from the syndrome of having to sell and give continuity to this successful return?

Best Track: Arabesque