Music of the Spheres Review

The concept is a solar system and the songs are named after its planets, some with symbols instead of words, and almost none of it means anything once the music starts. Martin's production is clean and enormous and does exactly what it was hired to do, which is the most defensible thing on the record. The problem is what he is producing.

My Universe and Higher Power are engineered to test well and to do nothing else, the guest feature is a business decision with a melody attached, and the words across the whole album are the weakest of the band's career: platitudes about light and love and stars, strung together with no image specific enough to argue with. Critics said so almost in unison, which is why the writing grade sits at the bottom of the card, and the common verdict was that a band with nothing left to prove sounded like it was straining for a hit.

Then Coloratura arrives, ten minutes of drifting piano and guitar that sounds like the band who made the first three albums, and several of the same reviewers called it the finest thing they have ever done. One track cannot carry a record. It can prove they could still do it.