chrismoyles.net
- Sat Apr 28, 2001 11:00 am
#97832
</images/rt3.gif> It is rarely a good sign when you can't tell if an album is on or not. From British indie-guitar mumbling to completely innocuous songwriting, Coldplay's Parachutes is an unhealthy sign of a musical subculture that is mired far too deep into its own anonymity. Yes, this is an album that -- aside everything else -- refuses to acknowledge it is even alive. The problem might be in the marketing aspect of the band. If Embrace was a competing label's answer to Oasis, Coldplay seems to be another label's answer to Travis. This time the response is to try and manufacture an album that is so riddled with even more indie-by-number blandness that it will be nearly impossible for any potential record buyer to be offended, because Parachutes is an album in love with the ordinary. The closest the album ever comes to anything interesting is on "Shiver" -- a wafer-thin mimicry of Ned's Atomic Dustbin that at least implies that the band can do well when they play around with usual verse-chorus-verse structures. Still, other than that, the album is bare of anything else very noteworthy. The core single "Yellow" sets up an interesting premise with rolling guitar riffs and vocal cracks, yet goes absolutely nowhere with any of it. Also, closer "Everything's Not Lost" (despite at times sounding like a Randy Newman throwaway) has a wistful atmosphere about it that feels like an epilogue to an event that never happened. Even the better songs prove that there is a large failure to peak on this album. This is a traditional case of wasted opportunity. Everything is just so determinedly middle-of-the-road, one can only picture a dotted yellow line while listening to it.<P>-- Dean Carlson<br>
dave benson phillips
