The ancient churches of Barcelona that played host to the marvel Coldplay’s first record in three years would become offered no shortage of blessings. To be certain, the communion between producers Brian Eno and Markus Dravs and the band could not have come at a better time. For all of Chris Martin’s bleating over the majesty of the woefully uneven X&Y, Coldplay has finally delivered an album that doesn’t just sound important; most of Viva La Vida actually is.

To say that this is arguably Coldplay’s most U2-esque effort is not an insult or trite comparison, but rather an acknowledgement of the experimental tenacity that Eno brought to Viva La Vida – the chiming guitars, the tribal rhythms, and the intoxicating freedom of chopping down the band’s rigid self-imposed rules that had gotten them into a creative rut. The world had grown tired of the ultra-serious English quartet’s chest-thumping and piano-pounding alterna rock. It was time to back up the megalomania with fist-pumping tunes that sound like they can actually take over the world, versus meekly raising a white flag and singing about birds and the speed of sound.

With just 10 tracks and clocking in at 46 minutes, Viva La Vida is Coldplay’s shortest record and most vital since 2002’s A Rush of Blood to the Head. The otherworldy “Cemeteries of London” is a gloomy journey with rousing vocals and handclaps that finds the great city shrouded in darkness and spiritually bankrupt despair. “Lost!” is stadium-sized and intimate, and “42” is a beautiful piano ballad that at first calls to mind classic Beatles moments before it takes a bombastic detour a la Chicago or Tears for Fears. The punchy and sprawling “Lovers in Japan” and its tender hidden track “Reign of Love” are romantic and bold, with Martin at his pied piper best.

The following four songs – “Yes”/“(Chinese Sleep Chant),” the title track, “Violet Hill” and “Strawberry Swing” – are the finest and most inspired moments of Viva La Vida, in which Coldplay is firing on all cylinders, unafraid to scratch new surfaces, peek under new rocks, and recapture the compelling momentum it displayed on A Rush of Blood. “Viva La Vida” and “Violet Hill” are especially important terrain for the band to cross in 2008. They both exemplify and improve upon the formula that made Coldplay one of the biggest bands in the world: massive, life-affirming, soul-excavating tunes with big ideas, big emotions and even bigger hearts.

Viva La Vida is a grandly ambitious, necessary offering that is angry enough, poignant enough, and finally, less an album of love songs, and more an album written by men with grown-up lives who have gone to war with each other and their band’s legacy. The revolutionary aspect of it all, album artwork included, is that letting go of the constant need for approval and donning sturdier armor may have finally helped Coldplay win the battle and conquer the omnipresent burden of proof. (Capitol) –Carrie Alison