Sincerity, my friends, can easily get out of hand. It start's out with one or two innocent declarations of love against a ringing guitar crescendo. Soon though you're meaning everything you say. Then you can't turn around without shouting your every thought as though cursing the very stars. I imagine people like Bono, Chris Martin and Gary Lightbody even order their morning bagel and coffee against a steady beat and loud emotional, "whoa, whoa's."

It wasn't so long ago that projects with Lightbody's stamp were allowed to show some semblance of humor. The first track on 2003's Final Straw was a lilting pop head turner, but with a wry smile and slightly curdled title, How to Be Dead. In naming and sound it seemed Snow Patrol had picked up some tricks from their Scots compatriots in the country-wide side project Reindeer Section. A few songs later on the album though came Run, as shamelessly simple and perfect a sad-sack anti-power ballade as you could want in the days before international wanker king James Blunt.

In their bid for stardom Snow Patrol had two personas to chose from and they let MTV choose for them. The success of Run led them directly to a song like their hit single, Chasing Cars. And more power to them I say. Snow Patrol's gotta eat too, and laddish humor may tickle the critics but it rarely pays the bills. '06's bona-fide cross over Eyes Open handed us Snow Patrol as the singles band their fans had long suspected they could be, shorn of ambitions other than total success.

Now comes their newest, A Hundred Million Suns, and just like the nuclear furnaces of its title the songs burn on two settings, simmer and flare, always large and always sustained.

The songs are some of the band's strongest to date and actually become more interesting on second and third listens. Along with strong melody and impassioned delivery one finds particular treats like the highly personal lyric painting in the scenes set for Crack the Shutters and If There's a Rocket Tie Me To It (example, "And I knew the beat 'cause it matched your own beat/ I still remembered it from our chest to chest and feet to feet").

If Eyes Open was Snow Patrol's commercial arrival this most recent may well be their statement of full artistic maturity. As much as I hate to see the bloom of wit replaced with the purposed gaze of successful formula, A Hundred Million Suns is a strong and rewarding album, even encouraging repeat listens to its sixteen minute three part ending suite.

Snow Patrol are all grown up and they mean every word.

Release date: 27/10/08
Artist website: www.snowpatrol.com
Label: Polydor

(0) comments - discuss in the forum