Nice to see some
Mylo Xyloto love on people's Coldplay's lists—I think that album is criminally underrated. I love Charlie Brown and Don't Let It Break Your Heart. Both really great songs. And while
X&Y is not anywhere close to my favorite Coldplay album, Swallowed In the Sea is a great song.
A Head Full of Dreams was a disappointment to me, honestly. It's not a bad album, but it's a bit bland. For a band that in my opinion had put out three stellar albums in a row from VLV to GS, it was disappointing to get one that was just okay. Most of the songs are good, but they don't really make a strong impression for the most part. Up&Up is a pretty good closer, so that was good. I'd just say the album is a 6/10 which is disappointing when the preceding three all would be in the 8-10/10 range.
@Sebastian: If you haven't already, check out Transatlanticism and Plans—though I liked Kintsugi, I would say that those two are noticeably better albums, each with a handful of genuinely great songs and a ton of good ones.
OK, will do! I'm curious about the band - it's the type of pop music I liked as a teenager listening to The Cure and The Smiths, but made by a contemporary band. The only other thing I know about them is that John Myung praised "I Will Possess Your Heart" in a 2011 interview.
I Will Possess Your Heart is a good song (and I'm not surprised to hear that JMX singled it out, because it has a very good bassline), but as Kev noted, the album it's on (
Narrow Stairs) is not among their best. I wouldn't say it's a bad album, but it's among their weakest ones.
I would agree with that; Transatlanticism and Plans are their best two albums. Still, The Photo Album is pretty damn great, too, and I have much love for Kintsugi and Codes and Keys. Narrow Stairs was somewhat of a bump in the road, even if it does have some really good tunes on there.
I like
Codes and Keys a lot. I think
Kintsugi is good, but I would not rank it as high as it seems like you would. For me, the top three are
Transatlanticism,
Plans and
Codes and Keys, then a small step down to
The Photo Album, then a step down to
Kintsugi and a small step down to
Narrow Stairs. I have
We Have the Facts... but I haven't listened to it enough to rank it, and I don't have the debut.
Narrow Stairs is one of those albums where I'll listen to it one time and think it's wonderful, and then listen to it again a couple of weeks later and think it's a dud. Ultimately, I think it's an album with a bunch of good songs that have a peculiar emotional tone to them and totally fail to make an impression if I'm not prepared to receive that emotion. Even a definitely good song like I Will Possess Your Heart just doesn't appeal to me if I'm not in a
Narrow Stairs state of mind. To a certain extent this may be true for me with
Kintsugi as well.
The exception is Grapevine Fires. Grapevine Fires is a beautiful song that contains a ton of my favorite musical things, and I will listen to it any day.