The Final Word in the Final Sentence

Over the two years iTunes has been issuing their Free Single of the Week, they have introduced us to a wide variety of songs; some didn’t make a dent in the musical landscape while others have gone on to be legitimate hits. I always find it funny when what was once a free single ends up a top seller because the people buying it could have gotten it for free at one point. But anyways. Arguable the best free song over the past two years was Run by Snow Patrol. I played the song obsessively, eventually making the song the most played song on my iPod so naturally I was chopping at the bit to hear their new material on the newly released Eyes Open.

The album opens with a sixties influenced You’re All I Have with synthesizers and harmonies but with guitars turned up. Over the next forty-five minutes the band takes you on a sonic journey from the highs to the lows that almost make you understand the U2 comparisons. Not in that they sound like the band, no one will ever be able to recreate the sound The Edge gets out of his guitars, instead Snow Patrol are able to craft music that doesn’t sound like anything else but is still palatable to a wide listening audience. Much like Run, Chasing Cars has and ebb and flow to it that just grabs you by the ear buds.

The journey you envision in your mind just maybe the theme of the album as they tell us to, “Just close your eyes until you can imagine this place, you're our secret space at will” (Shut Your Eyes). Then at the end of the journey they want so much to open your eyes Cos I need you to look into mine” (Open Your Eyes) to make sure we both got there before we get to the last track, The Finish Line.

Along the way there is the lullaby, complete with xylophones that could be used in a Disney ride in an alternate universe, on You Could Be Happy. Then there’s the grandeur Make This Go on Forever that, if it went on forever I wouldn’t have minded. The song builds and builds on piano as more and more people join the choir that helps out on the chorus. Then the album then quickly crashes into the more somber Set the Fire to the Third Bar, a beautiful ballad that Martha Wainwright helps with moody word especially when the two singers hit the chorus, “I'm miles from where you are, I lay down on the cold ground I, I pray that something picks me up and sets me down in your warm arms.”

If there was one negative to Snow Patrol is they still have yet to master the straight away rocker in the vain of Vertigo. When they do on songs like the unfortunate first single Hands Open as well as It’s Beginning to Get to Me and Headlights on the Dark Road seem to blend into each other and are too much like a couple songs off the last album. If on future releases they are able to craft a bombastic stadium anthem or two, they just may live up to the moniker of this generation’s U2.

Song to Download - Make This Go On Forever

Eyes Open gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.