 The past 10 years have been a rollercoaster for Snow Patrol. Their first two mediocre albums became cult hits rather than commercial triumphs and led to them being dropped by Indie label, Jeepster. The songs that followed were written with the passion of a man facing his final shot at success. Raw, honest and impossibly beautiful, this new commitment led to a major label courtship. Of course, those songs included the anthemic "Run” and went on to form the phenomenal 2003 album, Final Straw. The rest as they say - is history.
Final Straw was a modern Indie-pop masterpiece. Previous albums Songs for Polar Bears and When It's All Over We Still Have to Clear Up had been an indulgent mish-mash of styles and youthful experimentation. Now with Jacknife Lee on production duty, spiky guitars and samples were added to the band's resident melodic inclinations. Every song gleamed with glistening melodies and poetic lyrics making it a seamless record of outstanding beauty and ruthless honesty. The second single “Run” shot into the Top 10 and made Snow Patrol a UK household name. After nearly a decade of trying, the Glasgow based five-piece had finally made it.
Critical acclaim and a stint supporting U2 on their European tour have it seems, done wonders in boosting the band's already soaring confidence. The eagerly anticipated follow-up to Final Straw, Eyes Open, is in every sense an ambitious effort. There's a security in the sound this time. The kind of security that you feel when your last album sold millions and your grateful record label are willing to flash the cash and indulge any whim you so desire, in the hope of a repeat performance. But when you have a hit as successful as "Run", no one would blame you for identifying the winning formula and running with it. Or as Snow Patrol have done - identify what made the songs on Final Straw so popular and run with it - like the wind.
Eyes Open is an album of startling contrasts. Frontman Gary Lightbody’s lyrics are as always – tenderly beautiful tales of relationship crisis and longing, lost love, perhaps deeper than previous efforts, but by no means a departure. Opening tracks “You’re All I Have” and “Hands Open” are loud crowd-pleasing stadium fillers, so mainstream Indie that even Chris Martin’s getting his coat and hailing a taxi.
Tear stained sing-a-long “Chasing Cars” cleverly carries on where “Run” left off – a gigantic epic fit for weddings, funerals and the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy. An unconventional choir on “Make This Go On Forever” and “Set Fire To The Third Bar”, a hauntingly beautiful duet with Canadian songstress Martha Wainwright, are undoubtedly the albums glittering pinnacle; Wainwright's Kate Bush-esque voice blending perfectly with Lightbody – a pairing not unreminiscent of Shane and Kirsty. In comparison, middle-ground tracks like "It’s Beginning To Get To Me" and "Headlights On Dark Roads" are alarmingly mediocre – crafted to please a mainstream audience while never really setting themselves on fire.
For all the tender and loud moments on Eyes Open – I’m not sure it actually works. There’s no doubting its majesty, its originality or its ambition, but this is an album a little too polished. In its entirety it strives to be a bigger and bolder version of previous success, designed to reach the CD players and radios of as many people as possible. Maybe this is too cynical. Eyes Open might be a little too commercial for fans of the band’s Scottish underground roots to ever genuinely appreciate. Or it might just be so much better than good; words fail to do it justice. After all, if any band deserves to inherit the Earth, it’s Snow Patrol.
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