One of the biggest and most pleasant of surprises of 2019, musically, is how much I have enjoyed this new Coldplay album. This album feels like a fresh breath of air amongst their recent releases, and shows a lot of improvement in terms of variety, songwriting, and concepts.
This record feels substantial, like it has something to say, some hopeful message to impart amongst the craziness and darkness of everyday life; it has some of Coldplay's most moving and beautiful tracks as well as some intriguing left-field experimentations (left-field in context for Coldplay, rather). The energy is great, the pacing and flow of the record is perfect (in part due to the double album being only 54 minutes), and the songs themselves are very memorable: Arabesque, Guns, BrokEn, and especially Trouble in Town show a different side of Coldplay, one that has matured and yearned to put out something different for a change. This album is all the better for it.