There’s no need to ask Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow about their “conscious uncoupling” anymore. We just have to listen.
On the bittersweet ballad “Everglow” — taken from Coldplay’s seventh album, “A Head Full of Dreams” (out Friday) — they sing the reflective line, “So how come things move on, how come cars don’t slow,” together. Paltrow wrote it, and Martin insisted she sing with him. It could have been a moment of unbearable sappiness, but it’s understated and surprisingly affecting.
It’s also a rare moment of melancholy. Martin nursed his wounds on 2014’s unsatisfying “Ghost Stories,” but now that’s out of his system, the Brit singer and his band have turned over a vibrant new leaf.
With the help of Norwegian dance production team Stargate, the quartet has injected its big melodies with a shot of disco and even a dash of hip-hop. If its last album felt black-and-white, “A Head Full of Dreams” often comes at you in blinding Technicolor.
The title track pulses with a kaleidoscopic energy that sounds like U2 doing disco-funk while “Hymn for the Weekend” (featuring Beyoncé) is the kind of sun-kissed party jam that Rihanna has been missing for a few years. If, as rumored, Coldplay appears at the Superbowl 50 halftime show, these songs seem like shoo-ins for the set.
Above all, it’s an album that dares to be hopeful. “Don’t ever give up” is the last line Martin sings on the rousing, almost spiritual closer, “Up&Up” — and in times like these, that’s a gutsy thing for this band, so often derided as wimpy, to sing.