eMusic Review
The Brothers and Sisters EP, the three-track disc that landed Coldplay on a major label for their celebrated 2000 debut album Parachutes, is a remarkably confident effort for a band merely a year old. The songwriting predicts what was to come — singer Chris Martin's falsetto on "Easy to Please" anticipates the resigned melancholy of the stellar "Trouble" from Parachutes — even if the arrangements doggedly remain in the footprints of Jeff Buckley's Grace and Radiohead's The Bends.
At the very least, Brothers and Sisters establishes that Martin's hand-wringing ennui is hardly fame or Gwyneth's doing; even on "Only Superstition," he guardedly warbles of fates he "can't escape." Had Coldplay included these three tracks on either Parachutes or A Rush of Blood to the Head, it's extremely likely that all would have been hits. The title track in particular would benefit from the piano-driven shuffles of "Clocks" and "The Scientist," especially when paired with Martin's testy vocal phrasings, already present here. Whether your interest is musical or anthropological, this early document won't disappoint.
