The current prevalence of exams in the minds of many Cambridge students may lead to a search for a source of distraction, an escapist leap into the world of art and music. With regard to such pursuits, listening to Ghost Stories, the new Coldplay album, cannot be recommended, as it will surely bring about the disappearance of any faith the Cantab may have in the progress of culture and civilisation. Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments, but 2014 marks a definite shift in the direction of Coldplay and a decline in the originality and diversity of their music.

Ghost Stories begins with a soft intro utilising echoing guitar tracks to good effect. Unfortunately, however, the album is plagued by computer drumming from the start, which, although in vogue at the moment, most notably used in the verses of ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ by Arctic Monkeys, cannot be supported as an album-spanning artistic element. To make matters worse, while perhaps with the exception of the bonus track 'All Your Friends', the album’s lyrics are minimalistic and filled with clichés. These aren’t the long quasi-Romantic verses of the Smiths or the minimalistic yet poetic bursts of lyricism of Jim Morrison.

Frequent use of imagery such as stars, birds and midnight as well as the monotonous hegemony of the theme of love throughout the album forces the listener to focus on the music rather than the lyrics of Coldplay’s latest release. Furthermore, the entire album is marked by a love for synthesisers, which can only claim to have been implemented with mixed success. A focus on simple guitar parts, extensive echoing and soft, rhythmically tedious basslines make Ghost Stories seem like a bad cover of an xx album, albeit with Coldplay’s stereotypical background ‘oh-ohs’ and piano riffs.

A lack of originality permeates the album with songs alternatively sounding like the xx, Grouplove or even, in the case of 'True Love', an 8-bit version of a Killers song. A welcome exception to the pseudo-introspective, spaced out timbre of the album is 'A Sky Full Of Stars', which is a house-influenced dance number and is enjoyable in its own right. It is placed, however, near the end of an album of failed auto-tune experiments, too many of Coldplay’s notorious broken piano chords and an attempt to create a contemplative atmosphere via echoes and synthesisers, which makes the album boring rather than giving it a third dimension.

'A Sky Full Of Stars' will surely be met with enthusiasm amongst house/EDM fans. However, Ghost Stories as a whole represents Coldplay’s major failure to appear artistic.