For a band that supposedly dislikes being compared to Radiohead, Coldplay certainly don't do themselves any favours. Previously, it's been easy to compare the band's polished, epic sound to early Radiohead, but now not only have they released an album with oblique, abstract coverart, but they've also chosen an album title that is vague and seemingly meaningless, much like a lot of the Radiohead back catalogue. For all that Coldplay deliberately or unwittingly mine Radiohead on their superficial aspects though, at the core they're quite different bands, because while the latter tends to want to push musical boundaries to the limits, the former are seemingly happy to write glossy pop songs.

Hence "X&Y", the band's third album, and one that is full of glossy pop songs. While the band dropped all sorts of intruiging references to new sounds that would appear on this album: electronica, krautrock, and glam, none of it interferes with what Coldplay are good at, and that is stadium-filling rock ballads. If you were hoping for any surprises or shocks with this album, you're going to be very disappointed. But who am I kidding, most Coldplay fans won't want to be surprised, they're going to want to hear some pop on the level of Yellow or Clocks, and they're probably not going to be disappointed.

Album opener Square One does open up with some synth noise that originally made me think that I was going to be listening to the band's answer to "Kid A". Before long though, Jon Buckland's ever-reliable guitar part kicks in and begins taking the song on a soaring journey up into the stratosphere, complete with a gorgeous bass melody and falsetto vocals. Keyboards and synthesisers are also used to dress up Twisted Logic and Low, providing a nice change of scenery, but I doubt the songs would lose much if the electronic touches were dropped and they were performed entirely with guitar, bass, and drums.

Talk is a track that has been, well, talked about quite a bit. Not without good reason too, because it's probably the most interesting piece on this whole album. Although it's theft of the core melody of Computer Love is rather blatant, it's the way that they turn the sparkly, shimmering melody into a plodding, foreboding guitar piece that really makes the song. Buckland really steals the show on this track, his delivery and composition is absolutely perfect, and make this song the one respite from the polished ballads that make up the rest of this album.

Buckland's increased influence is not limited to Talk though, throughout the entire album Chris Martin takes less of a defining role than he has on the band's previous two albums, and lets Buckland, as well as bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion drive things forward a lot more. While it doesn't make any seismic shifts in the music itself, it changes things just subtly enough that the album sounds different to its predecessors.

In the end, it doesn't matter what we think of this album, Chris Martin still goes home to Gwyneth Paltrow at night, and they've still made more money off their previous albums than I'll ever make in my life. The fact that Chris Martin appears to have taken the backseat means that while the album has the same tone and flavour, it has a subtly different texture. It still sounds a little too much like U2 for comfort, it's still composed largely of syrupy ballads without much variation, but I'll be damned if its not a pretty good example of British soft-rock.