 Upon release , A Rush of Blood to the Head received universal acclaim from contemporary critics . Review aggregating website Metacritic reports a normalised score of 80 % based on 25 reviews . Many felt that it built upon their previous album , Parachutes . Alexis Petridis of the newspaper The Guardian wrote that the band 's " new assurance is everywhere ... the timidity of Parachutes is nowhere to be found " . He concludes , " It sounds like an album ready to take on the world , and win . " 
