Hovering around the bottom of a list of what the world needs right now must surely be: more whey-faced introspective guitar bands. At fist glance, the evidence is not good: Coldplay are four sensitive souls - higher education and pot noodle diets not too distant a memory - and clearly au-fait with the finer points of Jeff Buckley, Pink Floyd and, inevitably, Radiohead. So far, so Muse.

Yet their debut album's secret arsenal comprises frontman Chris Martin's voice - prematuraly aged for someone in their early twenties - and some supple, persuasive melodies. That and a great big side order of melancholy. Don't Panic, Sparks, and the singles Shiver and Yellow have a spidery quality with Martin's admittedly Jeff Buckley-esque voice assured and agile, but never performing gymnastics just for the hell of it. Spies is goosepimply, 4am stuff, with a forboding acoustic guitar refrain, matched later by Trouble's desolate piano hook.

You can only wonder what well of emotional trauma has been dredged for some of what's on offer here. Though Everything's Not Lost and the "hidden" track, Life's for Living have an uplifting quality, suggesting that it all might come right in the end. Halls of residence will echo with this record for months to come, but the rest of the world could do worse than listen.

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