Liveblogging Coldplay's Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends

As I listened to Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, Coldplay's latest masterpiece, I wrote down my initial thoughts, impressions, and more:

Life In Technicolor: Starts quiet, slowly gets louder. Nice organ plodding along. Hand drums! Strummed acoustic guitars! A very light-sounding track. Drums kick in after a minute and a half, but no vocals yet. There's a lot going on here, and not a vocal in sight. That was interesting.

Cemeteries Of London: Chris is now singing, and the melody is quite good. More hand drums, cool rhythms. There seem to be a lot of electronic things happening, probably Brian Eno's handiwork. This is definitely more rhythmic than any of Coldplay's previous songs. The chorus has a neat echo effect. Sort of U2-ish. Ends with a little piano riff.

Lost!: Again with the rhythms! It's like Coldplay in a drum circle. The organ is a major part of this song. It's droning on and on over the guitars. The melody sneaks up on you.

42: Who writes these song titles? Billy Corgan? This starts out with just piano and voice. Almost like "The Scientist." This sounds like a typical relaxing Coldplay song. It seems a little jazzy, almost. It's a good contrast to what has come before on this album. Oooh! A couple minutes in, and the drums kick in! There's some strange guitar sound too. And now some real guitars. This is quite interesting! "You didn't get to heaven, but you made it close." Nice lyrics! I think this is my favorite track so far.

Lovers In Japan/Reign Of Love: Almost sounds like U2, except for this really nice piano in the foreground. The drums sound very good. The layers of sound just keep coming and coming. The guitars are really buried under effects here. And through it all runs that great piano. This is a bit upbeat, too. The first part ends with a bunch of noise. Now for the second part. Is that harp? It could be. Now there's piano. This is definitely a different Coldplay album. The vocal on this part is really beautiful! No melodies have stuck out for me yet, but the album is not over. This song is nice and relaxing. There are strings at the end - very nice touch!

Yes: This begin with strings and bass, and then some strummed electric guitar. There's a vaguely Middle-Eastern vibe here. Chris' vocals come in hard and heavy. This is quite intense for a Coldplay song. I like it! The band hinted at experimentation, and we have it on this track for sure. I really like the violin parts. Wow, nice guitar solo! Almost sounds like slide guitar. You think it ends, but it doesn't. Now we get some heavy guitars! Heavy drums too, and echoed vocals. This is good stuff!

Viva La Vida: I heard a bit of it on the iPod commercial, now I get to hear it for real. Lovely strings starting off. Very lovely melody! Best on the album so far, I think. The bass really kicks in on the chorus. This song is really more about the strings than the guitars. There are so many things to pay attention to! This is such a gorgeous song.

Violet Hill: I've heard this one many times already, and I like it. It starts out with piano and Chris' muddled voice, then kicks in the guitars and heavy drums and bass. It has a very steady beat. "If you love me, won't you let me know" is the most catchy lyric on the album so far. I'm still not sure if this should have been the first single. I'm thinking this or "Lost!" but I'll have to listen more to figure it out for sure. I have to say, this song really got in my head over the past month or two, however long it's been out. I hope all the other songs are the same way. I really like how this ends, back to piano.

Strawberry Swing: Starts with a country-ish guitar and then some drums that get louder and louder. This seems like a weird little song. Johnny Buckland seems to be a huge fan of The Edge. His guitar playing sometimes seems so similar. I like the simplicity of this song, compared to all the others. There aren't a million things happening in the background.

Death and All His Friends: Okay, last song the album. Last chance for Coldplay to make a good impression. Ominous title. Hmm, starts out as a piano ballad. We'll see where it goes from here. Very simple so far - piano, guitar and voice. Oh, now we get a taste of the other instruments. Seems like this is a slow-builder. Many different guitar sounds happening. It seems Coldplay really put a lot of thought into the guitar parts this time. Hey! It sounds like a hundred Chris Martins singing at once! Cool. It seems to re-start in the middle of the song. Hmm, this almost sounds like a reprise of the first song. That would be a nice way to end things. I'd have to listen to the first one again to make sure. The album ends with just guitar and organ, and slowly fades out.

(After the song is over) Yep, "Life In Technicolor" reprises at the end, minus the hand drums.

Thoughts so far: This is a dense, layered album with many surprises. Coldplay has played around with vocals, instruments and song structures. They haven't written any "get on MTV and fill the stadiums" songs like they did with X&Y. Nothing as catchy as "Speed Of Sound" here. This is an album that doesn't want to rule the world - just to make the world a little more colorful. I like what I hear so far.