The Scientist is widely regarded by many to be their greatest composition with one reviewer calling it the best song ever written. It is so emotionally powerful with Martin's vocals heart wrenching enough to make a grown man cry. The piano and acoustic guitar are arranged with the lifting orchestrated sweep. Martin sings "I'm going back to start" as he knows his romance is hopeless, ending the song with the anguished cry "ah-ooh / ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh".

Clocks is joyously constructed with shimmering piano arpeggios that make up the main melody. It's an upbeat, mid-paced tempo perfectly masking the despair ridden lyrics. Martin sings a story to us, with descriptive lines like "Shoot an apple off my head / Trouble that can't be named / A tiger's waiting to be tamed". At the end, he sings "Home / Home / Where I wanted to go" and the song gloriously fades out on a high note. The way the piano arrangement is performed is just stunning, simple in it's elegance and yet manages to make you feel so alive.

Daylight opens with a hazy and sleepy psychedelic guitar riff. The track is anchored by a drum beat and roving bass line that channel a Beatles Sgt. Peppers like percussion. Martin's vocals are flawless as usual. They begin rather slow and languid, before breaking out in the chorus with a style that matches the title, as if the sun is breaking through clouds. It's a lush, dreamy rocker that layers strings, pianos, guitars, and percussion.

Green Eyes is the song everyone wants to write or play for someone very special in their life. It starts intimately with just Martin's vocals and Buckland's acoustic guitar, before the rest of the band comes in to a mid-tempo beat at about the 2 minute mark. It's a touching heart felt song with lyrics of love like "Green Eyes / Yeah the spotlight shines upon you / And anyone who tries to deny you / Must be out of their mind".

Warning Sign begins with a guitar strum, then piano and strings come in blending together to delievery a sad, dark, yet warm ballad. Martin sings "A Warning Sign / I missed the good part / And I realized / I started looking / And the bubbled burst / I started looking for excuses". It's like a song where you could've let go in a relationship, but didn't and now you feel the consequences of it. Chris pleads, as most people would do to get someone back, "Come on in / I got to tell you what a state I'm in / I have to tell you in my loudest tones / That I started looking for a warning sign" then the song builds up to it's chorus, which is confessional " Well the truth is / I miss you / Yeah the truth is / I miss you so". Gorgeous song, without a doubt, beautifully arranged to propel it to a future classic status. It's almost as if Martin begins weeping towards the end of the song, as he sings the brilliant lyrics, "So I crawl back into your open arms". 

A Whisper is reminiscent of early Pink Floyd, anchored with a distorted chunky electric guitar, adorned with layers of piano and reinforced by guitar double tracking. It soars with a big air feel and serves as a dark reprise of Clocks with the lyrics "I hear the sound of the ticking of clocks / Who remembers your face / Who remembers you when you are gone".

The title track, A Rush Of The Blood To The Head, is a brilliant mid-tempo ballad of someone nearly having a mental breakdown. It leads off with the threating lines "Said I'm gonna buy this place and burn it down / I'm going to put this six feet underground" more like a promise of change than revenge. He continues with "I'm going to buy a gun and start a war / If you can tell me something worth fighting for", powerfully questioning the point of war, let alone violence. The chorus helps explains the break down he is is having, "Honey / all the movements have started to ache / see me crumble and fall on my face / as I know the mistakes that I've made / see it all disappear without a trace". 

The closer Amsterdam is another chilling piano driven anthem, lyrically reminiscent of Trouble off their debut. It's an amazing song with beautiful lyrics that are both depressing ("My star is fading / I see no chance of release") and hopeful ("Time is on your side / pushing you down / no cause for concern"). The song builds and builds to its climax, where the guitars and percussion blasts in, and culminates with Martin singing, "Stuck on the edge / tied to a noose / but you came along and cut me loose". Buckland's adept guitar is accompanied nicely by Martin's beautiful piano to end the song and album perfectly.

Where Parachutes was the album that introduced the capabilities of this unique band, A Rush Of Blood To The Head is the album that elevated their status as one of the best British rock bands this decade. It may be fashionable to bash Coldplay now, since they've become so massively popular, but it's always a pleasure listening to this album, no matter how times I've heard it. After all, they're just a bunch of guys who make catchy, sophisticated pop music. While maybe not the most innovative band on the planet, they have gained success because what they do, they do exceptionally well, and that's exactly what did here with this beautifully composed and arranged majestic breakthrough record.