High-minded cynics may have dismissed Coldplay as the poor man's Radiohead, but these starry-eyed Anglos figured out early on that a lot of pop fans like their brooding anthems to be simple and melodic, not modern art projects. Thanks to blanket exposure via the new iTunes commercials, even us cynics have heard the chart-topping single "Viva la Vida" 127 times by now. "Revolutionaries wait for my head on a silver plate / Just a puppet on a lonely string," frontman Chris Martin sings, as multi-tracked keyboards and strings swirl portentously behind him. Producer Brian Eno, who sculpted U2's sonic signature in the 1980s, gives Martin a lush, kaleidoscopic carpet of sound to float on. It's no accident that on songs like "Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love" and "Strawberry Swing" Martin most closely resembles vintage Peter Gabriel: half-morose yet also glorious. None of this makes Coldplay 2.0 any more convincing than the previous model, but it does succeed in making the shallow appear profound -- even if only for four minutes and six seconds.

-- Steve Dollar