Album: Coldplay, Prospekt’s March (Parlophone)

Comprising three new mixes of tracks from Viva La Vida, and six further tracks not completed in time to be considered for inclusion on the album, Prospekt's March is being made available as an EP in its own right and as a bonus addition to the Special Edition of Viva La Vida.

The new mixes of "Lost!", "Life in Technicolor" and "Lovers in Japan" pull the songs in differing directions: the former is stripped back to a basic hip-hop beat, with handclaps, organ and synth pad behind Chris Martin's vocal, and the usual flaccid tribute to Tupac and Biggie from guest rapper Jay-Z, while the latter two tracks are rendered even more slavishly U2-esque than before, a process which in the case of "Life in Technicolor II" involves the unusual stratagem of harnessing a dulcimer to a stadium-sized reverb and vaunting beat. Of course, it could just be the lingering Eno influence, also discernible in the sound-washes that backdrop "Prospekt's March/Poppyfields" and "Now My Feet Won't Touch the Ground", meditations on mortality in which Martin attempts to put himself within the moment of death, in the one playing a mortally wounded soldier on the battleground and in the other requesting friends to "push my boat from the cliffs to the sea below".

Download this: 'Now My Feet Won't Touch the Ground', 'Rainy Day', 'Prospekt's March/Poppyfields'

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