Boston Globe 70
Clearly, the members of Coldplay haven’t completely shaken off their ghosts. But just as clearly, they’ve found joy again in “Dreams.”
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The New York Times 70
Blissful even at its most bittersweet, it’s an album on which three songs make lyrical references to diamonds--as in, “We are diamonds”--and every surface contentedly gleams.... Mr. Martin, who has rediscovered the radiant properties of his voice, gilds a lot of lyrical treacle and borderline nonsense here.
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NOW Magazine 60
It's consistently uplifting and bright, and its best moments feature powerful orchestral sweeps, a surprisingly adept disco hook and even some gospel. But the lyrics are often so cringe-worthy that A Head Full Of Dreams comes off like that one friend of yours who's so positive you want to punch him.
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The Telegraph (UK) 60
Throughout, the band’s big, bittersweet sound is, as ever, wonderfully immersive: whalesong cycles of electric guitar echoing through a buoyant soup of synths that sound both pleasant and forgettable.
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The Independent (UK) 60
The absence of those usual big arena hooks proves critical through the rest of the album, when the songs don’t quite hit home.
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Exclaim 60
A Head Full of Dreams might have been a poptimist masterpiece. Instead, it's just another Coldplay album, with all the baggage--both positive and negative--that entails.
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The Guardian 60
A Head Full of Dreams is frustratingly blighted by the sense that Coldplay haven’t fully committed to the album’s big idea: they keep deviating from the Stargate pop plan to knock out stuff like Amazing Day.
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The 405 55
The majority of the track list is made up of songs that run far too long, have beyond cringe worthy concepts and lyrics (see: the attempt at love struck club banger, complete with Beyoncé, on 'Hymn For The Weekend') or simply sound too unoriginal to stand out from the others.
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Consequence of Sound 50
No matter how overblown or nonsensical Coldplay have progressively gotten since 2002’s watermark A Rush of Blood to the Head, as long as they deliver one gobsmacking single per album, they’re kings--and rightfully so. That’s how you build a career. A Head Full of Dreams follows suit with first single “Adventure of a Lifetime”.
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Pitchfork 48
Even when A Head Full of Dreams hints at experimentation, it inevitably drifts back onto predictable paths.
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PopMatters 40
The more you dive into these strange Dreams, the more it’s obvious that after trying to stylistically copy various groups on Ghost Stories, here they’re outright ripping them off.
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http://www.metacritic.com/music/a-he...reams/coldplay