In X&Y Coldplay tries to answer for itself, how do you sell morose nostalgia and sappy sentiment to stadium crowds? It's no joke, EMI is positioning Coldplay to be the next U2, but Chris Martin and company have built their musical castle on music best listened to alone, or with someone who you wish hadn't just dumped you.

For their part, the rest of the band has an answer to the stadium dilemma: The guitar and synthesized soaring organ sounds, backed by progressive bass lines and driving rhythms produce a sound big enough to fill every corner of a stadium, even if the lyrics and sentiment are still focused inward.

All of this sentimentality from one of the fastest growing bands on the planet, with a frontman who has recently fathered the child of new wife Gwyneth Paltrow naturally begs the question: What gives? Is there still a lot of angst to be had in Chris Martin's world? If the answer is no, it may go a long way towards explaining why X&Y sounds so much like a Coldplay album. That is to say, the feeling is of an album written about a sentimentality that no longer exists. At it's worst, X&Y comes across as a bid by Martin to re-create the songs and the successes he had with Rush of Blood to the Head.

The intelligence and dry emotion of Martin's lyrics are contrasted, not balanced, by the soaring sound of the band, creating these giant, morose, sing alongs for the lonely. Which may actually be ironically fitting for modern culture, where technology is at once isolating individuals and connecting populations.

Ephemeral rock. Ambivalent pessimism. X&Y, or Whatever. Coldplay will suffer at the hands of those who compare them to U2, and futilely as well, for there are truly very few musical similarities between the two.

Weather or not Coldplay is ready to be the world's biggest band, there is no denying that Coldplay can still throw together some really good tunes when they're playing within themselves. "Square One" introduces the new, big boy pants aspiring sound, but that sound isn't actually achieved until track 3's "White Shadows," where Martin's vocal style still can't stand up to the musical swagger. "Speed of Sound" begins the "Y" side of X&Y (in the old days this would have been called the B side), and by pulling the music in just a touch, the overall performance and effect improves. Overall, you get a stepping up of the acoustic guitar and piano on the Y side, bringing Coldplay back to its roots, and back into their comfort zone. It may not fill a stadium as well, but for now, this is where the band lives, and where it thrives. The determined listener will stick around for the bonus track, "Till Kingdom Come," where, without the synthesized effects or overblown band sound to crowd his simple lyrics, Chris Martin and Coldplay sound most at home, and are at their best.