Still-Evolving Coldplay Kicking It Up a Notch

All cold and no play would make Chris a dull boy indeed, but that wasn’t a problem at the El Rey Theatre on Tuesday.

Translation: The English band Coldplay and its frontman, Chris Martin, confronted this year’s career crossroads and came out all dripping sweat, flashing lights and rocking hard.

With their winsome hit “Yellow,” they arrived last year as a down-to-earth alternative to the pop world’s din--a rainy-day, piano-grounded counterpart to similarly earnest bands such as Travis, an heir to the articulate, tasteful, organic craftsmanship of such broad-based artists as Sting.

On its first tour of this country, Coldplay’s shows were energized by a freshness that came with being an out-of-nowhere success, and the band benefited greatly from the breezy enthusiasm in Martin’s manner.

With its second album about to come out, Coldplay is now an established presence--in fact, in this time of rapid turnover in pop music it almost seems like a comfortable old veteran. With the initial buzz gone, the band needed to find a different framework for its concerts.

Why not just play the songs?

Well, that would make for a pretty downbeat evening. Like its 2000 debut album, “Parachutes,” the new “A Rush of Blood to the Head” (due in stores Tuesday) is slow, somber and introspective, channeling stately keyboards, chiming guitar and Martin’s plangent voice into dark pools of troubled reflections on relationships and, it appears, politics (the title phrase refers to the physical impetus for some violent actions that may or may not be metaphorical).

With its imaginative arrangements and rich melodies, “Rush” is challenging and deliberate. But Coldplay is an ambitious group, one that’s not content to conduct a low-key ceremony for the most patient fraction of its audience.

The solution offered at the El Rey show (which ended a series of eight small-venue concerts preceding Coldplay’s formal tour) was to go grand.

Martin, while retaining his easy rapport with a crowd, has become a much more physical performer, executing Townshend-like jumps and snapping his lanky frame in arresting punctuation with the music.

And Martin (alternating between piano and guitar), guitarist Jon Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion repeatedly found the most aggressive ways to attack these ballads, while still keeping them ballads.

The approach didn’t always emphasize the songs’ essential emotional contours, but it never violated their nature with false jollity, and the band managed to build a credible bridge between its signature sound and a lean, rocking, Jesus and Mary Chain-like take on Echo & the Bunnymen’s “Lips Like Sugar.”

And you’re looking for a band with a little class and dignity? Give Coldplay (which plays the sold-out Greek Theatre Sept. 10) extra points for not once mentioning that they have a new album coming out next week.