One of the best indie bands of the present days Snow Patrol is famous not only for its grandiose live performances but also the vivid audio recordings which always offer more than one potential hit. It comes back today two years later after the release of its successful 2006’s album Eyes Open with a new material A Hundred Million Suns. As front man Gary Lightbody has stated himself, A Hundred Million Suns is their best album to date: if before the collective would mainly sing of unhappy love, betrayal and breaking up this time the guys have decided to turn to some more joyful topics. The new record’s main idea is the future and dreaming about the elevated and beautiful. As for the sounding of Snow Patrol there is an obvious progress here. In fact each of the members has confessed earnestly to have worked on the technique of playing so the result proves to be more than just satisfying. On the whole A Hundred Million Suns is the softest, kindest and most lyrical one in Snow Patrol discography which by no means prevents it from being one of the most important claimants to the role of the year’s best rock albums.
As all Snow Patrol previous works album A Hundred Million Suns surprises with a richest instrumental background, Lightbody’s splendid vocals and most beautiful complicated tunes many of which linger in your mind almost from the very first listening. Yet what really distinguish this collective from the others are its unique lyrics shining with gorgeous metaphors, and the new album is one of the best in this respect. It opens with a wonderfully beautiful composition If There's A Rocket Tie Me To It with a gradually growing tempo and a great chorus to sing to whereas ballad Crack The Shutters amazes with its sincerity and the emotions filling the performance, besides, this is also another marvelous way to make a love confession. Rather a simple tune of a mid-tempo song Take Back The City contrasts with a stunning peace-making ballad Lifeboats that has become an example of the best guitar work on the album. No less impressing is the powerful rock number Please Just Take These Photos From My Hands, one of the little tracks on the album devoted not to the future happiness but to some sad reminiscences of the past, lost friends, times and places where one cannot return ever again. Certainly one of the record’s highlights is the love ballad The Planets Bend Between Us with a most beautiful melody and faultless lyrics all just perfect for the most dramatic moment of any film with a romantic story in it. Yet the most monumental is the final epic creation made of three parts The Lightning Strike: (I) What If This Storm Ends?/(II) The Sunlight Through The Flags/(III) Daybrea, over 16 long leaving no doubt that Snow Patrol has done all its best to preserve its reputation of one of the world’s most successful bands.
Despite the changes in the general atmosphere, there is one thing Snow Patrol never changes, i.e. the large scale of the created images. There can be found no oppressive attitude on its fifth album A Hundred Million Suns which sounded on the greatest part of the previous works and could pass to the listener but it has the same feeling of importance of whatever the songs run about. The basis for Lightbody’s new lyrics is meteorology, astrology, space research and other universal sciences. This author whose talent surprises more and more with each of his creations has managed to paint breathtaking pictures meant to render his understanding of real happy love on each on the 11 new tracks. Due to the splendid arrangements and the musicians’ most beautiful matched playing the impression is several times stronger. Certainly all the awards the Irish band is going to get for A Hundred Million Suns – one can even have no doubt it will – are deserved. Still we can talk about Snow Patrol electrical music as much as we can but nothing can ever substitute for those impressions that its direct listening can provide.
Fallen Empires
Up To NowUp To Now
Eyes Open
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