A Rush Of Blood To The Head
- Coldplay
- Critic Score
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100Fierce and noble and fragile and genuinely moving, 'A Rush Of Blood To The Head' is a lovely furnace of searing goodness made by some wonderful contradictory bastards.
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100May well come to be regarded as the best British rock album since OK Computer. [Sep 2002, p.118]
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Displaying a cohesion rarely heard in albums these days, ''A Rush of Blood'' bobs from one majestic little high to another.
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100There's nothing quite like the sound of a band at the top of its game.
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90It recalls U2's The Joshua Tree, and not just for its stunning guitar work but for its wild passion and spiraling tension-and-release dynamics.
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It's an album of outstanding natural beauty, an organic, wholesome work.
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90The key to 'A Rush Of Blood To The Head' is to be found not in Martin's presence, but in the intensity, dynamism, verve and style that Coldplay have now nailed, when comparisons to Radiohead, Echo and The Bunnymen and, perhaps most pertinently, U2's 'Unforgettable Fire', manifest themselves in a series of killer strides.
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90A stronger, more distinctive album than its predecessor in nearly every respect.
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90Parachutes was impressive, but Coldplay's new album, A Rush of Blood to the Head, is stunning, the amount of growth from Album One to Album Two equally so.
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90A very tastefully crafted, tuneful, and affecting piece of work with a band that is still just beginning to tap its enormous potential.
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80The sound is simultaneously terse and expansive--moody and powerful, shot through with singer Chris Martin's grainy delivery. [#9, p.145]
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A Rush of Blood to the Head might not instantly grab listeners, but it's not tailored that way. It pushes you to look beyond dreamy vocals for a musical inner core.
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80A collection of vastly moving songs that will render stadiums as intimate as bedrooms. U2, Radiohead... Coldplay? It would seem so. [Sep 2002, p.98]
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With A Rush of Blood, Coldplay do more than fulfill the promise of "Yellow" -- they surpass everything they've done up to this point, making first-rate guitar rock with some real emotional protein on its bones.
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Dressed up in subtle strings and pianos, and given time to slowly breathe and develop beyond simple pop, A Rush Of Blood's 11 graceful tracks sparkle and swirl, occasionally escalating into a booming crescendo before dissolving back into delicacy.
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The sound is fuller, the arrangements more complex; most importantly, the songs are just a whole lot better [than Parachutes'].
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If you're presently in love, A Rush of Blood ... will make you want to frolic like Lily Tomlin with the cartoon animals in 9 to 5. Otherwise, it'll probably make you want to puke.
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A patchwork quilt of wispy Britpop ballads soaring majestically in an effort to overcome their own blandness. [Oct 2002, p.78]
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70A guitar record equally suitable for a lost weekend or a good cry. [Sep 2002, p.125]
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Coldplay's new record is a little edgier, trancier, and more conversational than their last. It is called A Rush of Blood to the Head, and in waves and swells of major tunes and frisky then looping time signatures, that's just about the effect it has.
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Without the emotional resonance of Martin's voice at its most free, Coldplay's brilliantly minimal musical foundation has nothing to support. So it falters.
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60The line between hypnotic and tediously repetitive is occasionally crossed. [Sep 2002, p.94]
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51But while the sound of this album is more expansive, the influences a bit less obvious, and the approach more varied, the guys forgot to tote along their initial strength: the songs.
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30The most disappointingly safe alternative album of the year.
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It's Coldplay's lack of humor, the very straightness of its lyrics, that makes the dourness so detestable. And where miserabilists past had a strong pop sensibility, Coldplay is content to create directionless palettes of sound.