Listen to ‘Atlas,’ Coldplay’s single for the new ‘Hunger Games’ film

Coldplay is back -- and it feels awfully lukewarm.

The English band on Friday released “Atlas,” its contribution to the latest “Hunger Games” film, “Catching Fire,” which is set to hit theaters Nov. 22. It’s the group’s first new music since 2011’s “Mylo Xyloto” album and, according to a statement, marks the first time Coldplay has recorded an original song for a movie.

But if that description primes you for something pretty exciting -- not an unreasonable reaction, in spite of what millions of Coldplay haters might say -- “Atlas” doesn’t really deliver.

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Recorded, we’re told, in London between April and July, the piano-based tune sounds more like a tossed-off remnant from the outfit’s early days, before it began experimenting with deep rhythms and vivid textures on “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends” in 2008.

It won’t turn off anyone, but that’s kind of the problem: Where “Mylo Xyloto” gave the impression that Chris Martin and his bandmates were indulging all of their wacky ideas -- including a previously unhinted-at love of old-school rave synths -- “Atlas” merely does what you expect it to do. It needs a serious infusion of Jennifer Lawrence.

Listen to “Atlas” below.

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Twitter: @mikaelwood