Blood Rush

Coldplay's second album is as good as their first.

If you want to know the kind of music this band plays, know this - mainstream is what they’re not. But if they find an appreciative following that recognizes emotive rock as the next best thing, they might soon become what they’re not today.

This UK band plays a version of rock that is as musically minimal as it is poetically potent. With lyrics that would have delivered as much if simply read, the attending composition is spartan, meant only to elbow and emphasize the words. This, their second album, "A Rush Of Blood To the Head" has been compared with fellow groups Radiohead and Travis even. Why? Because they’ve made decelerated rock fashionable in an age where all else is accelerated.

Politically rife, songs like "Politik" and "Rush Of Blood To The Head" focus on societal stigmatas, encouraged by frantic drums in the opening of "Politik", easing slowly into steady piano play, while the title track rides on the vocal waves of Guy Berryman and a choir-esque chorus. In the intensely melodic yet melancholy "In My Place", where the vocals waver with fervency, the tune takes an uncharacteristic turn at the chorus. And as if to certify the genius of the group, "Clocks", a racy runner bears likeness to U2's work, with the vocals lightly sprinting against the octave. "Daylight" breaks the ease with its colliding orchestration, but things get back in line with "Green Eyes" and its explicit acoustics and overtones of country.

With eleven tracks that arouse without the excess of synthetic sounds, Coldplay faithfully delivers "A Rush Of Blood To the Head"!

This article was first published on02 Nov 2002.