Coldplay – A Rush Of Blood To The Head (2002)

After the success of their first album, Coldplay went further in their second recording in many aspects. They branched out and developed their sound to the point where they used some tasty instrumentation for us to hear. They put it all into this, their second album.

A Rush Of Blood To The Head refers to the sudden decisions that people make on impulse. It’s an interesting way to acknowledge things, let alone name an album. But this album is a good listen for sure.

We enter this album with Politik, a great piece defining life and times. It’s a good song and not actually about politics. It’s a piano driven piece with extra arrangements and instrumentation which are tasty.

The following song In My Place may lack meaning but it’s a great poppier piece of work than what you’d expect. Chris Martin sounds so reassuring throughout, despite the fact the lyrics are far from that. A good single to boot.

God Put A Smile Upon Your Face has a strangely tuned acoustic guitar, a pounding rhythm and Chris Martin trying to figure out if he is a bad person when he sings this one. It’s an underrated Coldplay piece and a great song. Good to hear.

The Scientist is not at all a happy song. It’s about breaking up in a relationship and going back to the start of it all. It’s a tearjerker ballad for sure. The piano is this is incredibly beautiful, as is the song itself. It’s now a classic song in rock history, and deservedly so.

The intricate piano-led ballad Clocks sounds so great it is often one of Coldplay’s most played songs on commercial airtime. It’s a good one as Chris Martin sings beautifully about closing walls and ticking clocks. We all run out of time some day.

The eastern sounding Daylight follows. It has a string section which has an unusual sound but adds spice to the mix. It’s a semi-psychedelic piece that doesn’t sound out of place. It holds up very well.

Green Eyes is a firey and passionate love song to a lady with green eyes. It’s relatively simple compared to the other songs on this recording, but it’s still excellent. For the most part, it’s just Chris Martin and an acoustic guitar, but it works so well on many emotional and intellectual levels.

Warning Sign reminds the listener to hold onto love. It’s a profound and mature sounding song that develops with a variety of instrumentation before Chris Martin desires to crawl back into a woman’s open arms. Very good indeed.

The follow up is quite weak. A Whisper is a good song, but not special. Despite this, it’s psychedelic enough in its own right to promote a neo-psychedelic vibe. In that respect, it does better than the other elements of the song. But it still sounds weaker than the other songs.

The title track A Rush Of Blood To The Head refers to human stupidity as we mentioned earlier. The song itself is okay, but not incredibly special. It’s an interesting way to cover the best and worst of human emotion though.

Amsterdam comes as the last song, and it’s nothing special really, as the song before it. It does have a nice ending but just seems way too slow. We end the album now understanding the concept of having A Rush Of Blood To The Head.

Coldplay went mega after the release of this album. It inspired legions of musicians to follow. The only problem after the release of this album was that Coldplay sold out the quality of their music once they achieved success. This album, along with Parachutes are Coldplay’s best efforts. It is a good way to begin the 21st century musically.

8/10