In 2000, a small wave of British pop bands clearly heavily influenced by Radiohead’s brand of anthemic mope rock arose, with Travis, Muse, and Coldplay at the forefront. Coldplay are the most clearly Radiohead-like, compared to the poppier Travis and the more electronic-oriented Muse, and their US debut, the 10-song PARACHUTES, should appeal to any fans of OK COMPUTER or THE BENDS who found KID A too weird for their tastes. (Coldplay even swipe a song title, “Don’t Panic,” from Douglas Adams, as Radiohead did with “Paranoid Android.)

The soaring yet depressing single “Shiver” is a masterpiece of swelling emotion, and the fact that the other nine tracks, even the instrumental fragment of a title track, sound like variations on its theme is more a matter of conceptual and musical unity than a lack of ideas. This album deserves the hype it got on release.

Tracklisting
1. Don’t Panic
2. Shiver
3. Spies
4. Sparks
5. Yellow
6. Trouble
7. Parachutes
8. High Speed
9. We Never Change
10. Everything’s Not Lost

Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (10/26/00, p.111) – 3.5 stars out of 5 – “…Straight-ahead, melodic Brit pop that strives for ’significance’ with a capial ’s’….[The album] rises above its influences to become a work of real transcendence…”

Spin (1/01, p.73) – Ranked #19 in Spin’s “Top 20 Albums of the Year [2000]” – “…[They] hoist their blue guitars and tug on Radiohead’s cape….evoking the forgotten shoegazers like Ride….Chris Martin makes early-’90s nostalgia seem like the next frontier.”

Q (10/01, p.73) – Ranked #21 in Q’s “Best 50 Albums of Q’s Lifetime”

Q (1/01, p.91) – Included in Q’s “50 Best Albums of 2000″ – “…[The] soundtrack to cheap vino-and-fag sessions…”

Alternative Press (12/00, p.94) – 4 out of 5 – “…Shimmering guitars haunt tormented tunes, dark gravel growls vie with Thom Yorke-y high notes….songs dawdle out of either a gentle whisper of sound or an awesome blurge of noise…”

NME (Magazine) (12/30/00, p.77) – Ranked #6 in NME’s “Top 50 Albums Of The Year” – “…Effortlessly moving and hugely popular at the same time…”

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