 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."
