Coldplay: X&Y

Herald rating: * * * *

The temptation with this one is to be really pernickety. Pull it apart line by line. Scoff loudly at those who think it will make Coldplay the next U2. Make cruel jokes at the expense of Chris Martin and his missus - she's famous you know - who undoubtedly figures in the lyrics somewhere.

Try to dash the hopes of those record company shareholders whose dividends are riding on this selling a couple of million by next week, not to mention those in the butane industry hoping a new batch of Coldplay ballads will cause an upturn in global ciggy-lighter fuel consumption. That sort of thing.

After all, it is the most anticipated third album out of Britain since the Oasis turkey Be Here Now and the Radiohead classic OK Computer.

But it takes just a couple of listens to its 11 tracks - as well as "secret" bonus song Til Kingdom Come, which Martin wrote for Johnny Cash - for X&Y to show its true colours.

It's a big-hearted, ambitious, optimistic, bold, confident, wide-screen affair that seems pitched at a slightly higher altitude than its predecessors Parachutes and A Rush of Blood to the Head.

The dynamics on this one make those shy and retiring by comparison.

Everything here is bigger - the quiet reflective ballads more quiet and reflective; the epics are attempting to be truly majestic.

It doesn't always work, maybe because it's taking its job as U2-audition a little too seriously - guitarist Johnny Buckland sounds more like the Edge on some tracks than the U2 guy did at the equivalent stage in his band's career.

But it's also an album that creates its own world - one which orbits around the increasingly gymnastic voice of Chris Martin - and generally wraps you up in it for its hour of glassy-eyed ballads and slow-fused Coldplay-anthems.

Of the ballads, the likes of the piano-stool melancholy What If and the devotional Fix You are both affecting in their sentiments, while the acoustic guitar-powered A Message or the oddly sea-shanty-like Swallowed in the Sea just might be become Coldplay's answer to U2's One.

But there are grander thrills throughout, whether it's the first single Speed of Sound (which reminds of the previous album's Clocks), the Echo and the Bunnymen-like rockers of Low or White Shadows or the epic finale that is Twisted Logic. As an album, it has its occasional dips in momentum and Martin's lyrical interest in things celestial can get the better of him.

But it's hard to see this failing to put Coldplay in the place they clearly want to be and it's especially hard to dislike X&Y for finding a thrilling formula to do just that.

Label: Parlophone/Emi