SoundBites: Coldplay, Grimes, Flying Nun

Coldplay

It doesn't seem that long since Coldplay last released a new album. In fact it was just last year they brought out Ghost Stories, the grown-up follow-up to 2011's Mylo Xyloto.

The band last week announced their seventh album, due next month. A Head Full of Dreams will feature guests including Beyonce, Tove Lo and Noel Gallagher, and appears to be a return to the technicolour, multicultural world of MX.

Lead single Adventure of a Lifetime leaves the rock guitars behind in favour of Maroon 5-lite pop, world music samples and Daft Punk electronica.

With a funky bassline and a hook that won't quit, it could prove to be a dancefloor favourite, but those who prefer the Coldplay of Ghost Stories and their best album, A Rush of Blood to the Head, may need to keep an open mind.

The new album from Grimes has landed with a wicked thump. The eagerly awaited Art Angels is the Canadian artist's fourth studio album, and offers a delicious mix of electronic, pop and indie rock sounds (with a smidgen of country), like an alternative Ellie Goulding or La Roux, with moments of Madonna.

The album is out now digitally, with vinyl, CD and cassette(!) formats to come next month.

Grimes will appear at Auckland's Laneway Festival on February 1.

Revisit a classic

It's more than a quarter century since Flying Nun released the seminal compilation In Love With These Times, featuring such classics as Look Blue Go Purple's Cactus Cat, Straitjacket Fits' She Speeds and The Skeptics' AFFCO.

Nevertheless there's a timeless quality to the label's trademark dark jingle jangle sound.

Some of the acts went on the bigger, perhaps better, things: Headless Chickens, whose Donka features, later topped the charts with George, while the Fits captured the nation's imagination with their album Melt and the Chills went suitably mainstream with Heavenly Pop Hit.

Check it out for a great nostalgia trip, or if you're new to classic Nun, a solid history lesson and introduction to an amazing period for New Zealand music.