Album Review: Coldplay – Kaleidoscope EP

What happened with Coldplay? Ever since they released their 5th studio album Mylo Xyloto they have been going downhill in terms of quality of their music. Albums like A Rush Of Blood to the Head, Parachutes and Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends are some of the best rock albums of this century. But with every new release they’ve become more and more disappointing. Unfortunately, the same can be said for their new EP called Kaleidoscope EP. It features a collection of five songs of which four were already released before.

Let’s start with the first song „All I Can Think About Is You“. Chris Martin’s vocals sound extremely lifeless, especially in the few opening notes. It seems like Coldplay are trying to set up this very quiet and subtle mood, but it ends up being very boring and uninteresting. Thankfully, the next song “Miracles (Someone Special)” is a little bit better. Big Sean’s verse is the best part of the song. I really like its flow! Also, the song’s guitar lick sounds great.

The worst song of the EP is definitely “A L I E N S” (Watch its lyric video HERE). First of all, the drum beat is 100% the same throughout the whole song without any variety, which even after the first listen gets painfully annoying. Coldplay have one of the best drummers of the century and it’s a shame, they don’t use him. Secondly, the electric guitar lick that appears every once a while is so out of place that it doesn’t sound good at all. Also, when Chris goes for the notes in the lower register, his voice simply annoys me.

„Something Just Like This (Tokyo Remix)“ has the best vocal performance of Chris – one of the few good things about Kaleidoscope. Another one is the guitar solo: the main thing that bothered me about the original version is that the great guitar solo was buried underneath the synths (which are shamelessly ripped off from „Roses“ by The Chainsmokers). Finally, in this version the guitar solo is higher in the mix, so it can be heard really good. 

Sadly, this is were my praises end. Kaleidoscope is quite an easy listen, but that’s also its problem: it feels very generic in some places, most prominently on “A L I E N S”. 

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