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Earlier this summer, President Bush described the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) nuclear arms treaty as a "relic." But be careful of relegating anything that's worked just fine for 30 years to the dustbin of history, Mr. President, lest ye get bit in the ass by the cynical nature of history. In 1972, the same year the ABM treaty was signed, lots of British rock bands were playing epic, audacious arena rock, experimenting with turning feedback into ornament, and transforming the prickle of distorted guitars into filigree. A few years ago, with the near total conquest of pop music by drum machines, synthesizers and computers, a music critic with a Bushian attitude might have declared such prog rock, as it was known, to have gone the way of the buffalo. But the buffalo are back, and looking pretty svelte, in the form of a new British rock band called Coldplay.

Their debut album, Parachutes (Capitol), doesn't update anything, but that hasn't stopped them from connecting with fans spanning several generations, and selling almost three million copies over the course of the last nine months. There isn't a newfangled synth to be found among the gorgeously cobbled tunes on Parachutes, just the churning sound of human hands slashing against metal guitar strings, and wooden sticks pounding drum skins. The emotions expressed are equally old-fashioned: promises to be faithful and a yearning to connect. In Coldplay's first hit, "Yellow," the experience of pining for love is glorified and expanded into a single, all-consuming colour field. "For you, I'd bleed myself dry," intones frontman Chris Martin, as his entire world is reduced to a glowing, amber-coloured ember.

Despite the rollicking pace of the chords, there's a note of sadness that pervades Parachutes. It isn't the ironic sullenness of Oasis we hear, but something very much like the mood of a bleary-eyed morning after, as if the '60s had just ended and Coldplay was just waking up to a startling new decade. Still slightly buzzed and a little homesick, Coldplay's songs are perched at that precise, exquisitely untenable moment between hope and disappointment.

Technically, aesthetically, and in every other sense, Parachutes could have been made in 1972. But that doesn't mean Coldplay are a relic. It means some things never go out of fashion. Like good singers, good songs and hooks so strong it would take a nuclear missile strike to make you forget them.

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