[Future Proof]

It's not that it's not beautiful, or offensive, or done with a technical proficiency... it's just sterile music. Rush Of Blood used to be a very evocative album to me, then one day the shine wore off. I still enjoy "Green Eyes" because of its general playfulness, which works, but none of the songs on that album accomplish quite what they want to. X&Y was a complete joke, nothing but pub-crawling anthems to get boozed up and melodramatic to. Parachutes was well enough, it was very pretty in spots but that album in general was again an underwhelming one. I liked "Spies" because of China's response to it but not much more than that, and I loved the Floyd-esque feel of "High Speed" but once again, the album just really fails in the idea that the emotional chord that it so desperately wants to strum, it never figures out how to do it. And the new album... well, they chose Eno I'm assuming to get a breath of new life into their music but Eno's body of work IMO is so detached that they would've been better off just grabbing the resident studio intern. Again, just a flat album that fails to deliver the shot that it wants to. But again, it's pretty in spots... technically proficient... and not offensive in the least.

One day, a far distance down the road perhaps they will grow into a band that is able to set to music the emotions that they're trying to convey but until then, they remain a gesture instead of the gut-punch they try to be on every album.