I don’t put a lot of faith in those people who chalk up this nascent Coldplay revival to some new band ethos or sound. “Violet Hill,” to me, drops like a classical Chris Martin shit; tender in its approach, ill or weary about itself, and just outrageously improper in the amount of fun it intermittently elicits. Only the indie band Coldplay would start their song with plangent piano chords and not smirk; only a more hairy Chris Martin would be self-conscious enough to then scrap that smackdown with a bizarro-Cheap Trick guitar overture. And then do it all again, a lot.

There are those of us still anxious about Parachutes, because it presented a Coldplay that we could listen to. This band (that Coldplay) was, above all, beyond listenable and frequently good, a band we could knowingly hum because we personally knew bands exactly like it, and has sort of re-emerged despite the history. This is Coldplay re-becoming Coldplay, in lieu of a Coldplay that never was. This Coldplay un-congealing themselves from the giggles and pain of half a decade’s worth of P. Diddy, Cat Deeley, and a slew of other execrable copycats trying to play at the song this band never made. So, in effect, this is Coldplay being completely unoriginal, relishing that impropriety and just taking off with their high art/low art salad days. This isn’t a new “sound,” because Brian Eno isn’t a new “radical.” This isn’t a new “band,” because, like we all know, Coldplay don’t exist. Or, if this were a sound, it would be the sound of four people trying to high-five Win Butler at once. And if it were a band, I guess that band would be Coldplay.

Coldplay: I kind of like it.

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