Music Of The Spheres: Coldplay's new release

AFTER 2019'S OUTSTANDING EVERYDAY LIFE, COLDPLAY RETURN TO OLD, IDEALISTIC HABITS AS THEY TRY TO BRING THE WORLD BACK TOGETHER AGAIN

A moment in the recent Bitchin': The Sound And Fury Of Rick James documentary recalls how Prince upset the funk-punk pioneer by mimicking his crowd-pleasing whoops while opening shows for him in 1980.

Furious his thunder was being stolen before he'd reached the stage, James confronted the Purple One. "Prince," James' manager Kerry Gordy recalls, "was like, 'Dude, you don't have a monopoly on Ooh-ooh!'"

That's just as well for Coldplay. Chris Martin employs similar wordless ejaculations as frequently as Boris Johnson employs Latin, filling spaces where others might offer something more valuable. You'll hear the singer 'Oh'-ing' and 'Woah'-ing on Higher Power, Humankind, Let Somebody Go and... sod it - basically every song. Sometimes, he follows Johnson's example more closely still, singing "Pluribus unum, unus mundus" on Coloratura and "Spiritus sancti" on Infinity Sign. Sadly, aside from "Olé, ole, olé, olé", they're the latter's only words. Johnson should check his grammar.

Still, when Martin uses grown-up words they don't always make more sense. Here he is on Higher Power. "I'm not going to make it/ And I think my shoe's untied/ I'm like a broken record and I'm not playing right/ Drocer nekorb a ekil mi". On Human Heart, he's "Only got a human heart/ I wish it didn't run away" - definitely one for the cardiologists - and on Coloratura he declares, "We're feathered by the crowd." Perhaps it's an awkward, erotic euphemism?

Nevertheless, who expects lyrical enlightenment from Coldplay? Their role is to unite across borders, as illustrated by Higher Power, its forced jollity ostentatiously premiered via the International Space Station, and the similarly bromidic My Universe, on which they're joined by South Korean boy band BTS. People Of The Prides more imaginative, unleashing dirty glam riffage amid its revolutionary - by Coldplay standards - calls for equality, while Human Heart offers nods to U2 and a PG-rated Van Halen, and the mid-paced Biutyful adds high-pitched Artificial Intelligence vocals to surprisingly touching effect.

But if Let Somebody Go's muted regret (presumably about a 'conscious uncoupling') represents an emotional nadir, Coloratura provides the album's peak. Its 10 minutes begin as a piano ballad, then end with more 'Oh-oh-ohs' - naturally - but also Pink Floyd guitars and an unusually subdued Martin delivering a melancholic melody of a quality that we've rarely heard since debut Parachutes. Woah indeed!