Chris Martin clearly feels a responsibility to use his bully pulpit to spread positivity. Nothing wrong with that. One of the reasons Coldplay are the biggest ticket-shifters in rock history is that Martin is an amazing frontman, both for his witty, engaging personality and his heartfelt delivery. Yet only the latter ever makes it on to Coldplay’s albums. There is no wit on Moon Music. He completely erases that part of himself. All that remains is empty, cloying optimism and too much ingratiating tosh about the stars and the sky and spheres and moons and rainbows and clouds and heaven. It’s the Magic FM shipping forecast.
The tosh is bearable where Coldplay’s golden melodic touch survives – We Pray and Good Feelings are particularly pleasurable. But, as on Music of the Spheres (2021), Max Martin’s anaemic production saps the weaker tracks: oodles of generic playlist pop that, apart from the piano ballads, reduce the band’s excellent players to decorative accessories. Hopefully, for their planned final two albums, Coldplay can conjure more trippy bangers such as 2015’s Adventure of a Lifetime or Hymn for the Weekend. And turn up the wit.