I watched the entire video of this skinny young man walking along the beach, singing directly to the camera, like Sinead in "Nothing Compares 2 U," another song that stops you in your tracks. I noted the band ­ "Coldplay" ­ and wedged in a stop at a CD store that day to our Ireland site-seeing schedule.

Now the full album, Parachutes, is available in the United States, and it’s about time. Coldplay has delivered the missing link between Radiohead and Travis ­ and that’s a good thing, folks.

"Yellow" is the album’s centerpiece, a first single that sonically rises and falls between frontman Chris Martin’s emotive pleadings and a guitar reminiscent of early Edge. Martin’s voice is on par with Thom Yorke’s, and generally is handled with a bit more care without losing any of the emotional wallop.

Lyrically, Coldplay and their fellow, post-Brit Pop travelers turn melancholy, not angry. (This ain’t the States, mate.) Even when Martin sings on the album’s anthemic closer, "Everything’s Not Lost," he sounds like he’s just convincing himself. Song-wise, Coldplay serve up track after track of hooks and solid melodies. "Don’t Panic" reminds me of the more accomplished moments from the Church (Starfish-era); "Trouble" is piano-driven ballad that builds nicely into a stadium crowd pleaser.

No, Coldplay is not the second coming, but for rock’s remaining defenders they represent a promising bulwark against the Slipknots and Bizkits of this sad pop world.