Snow Patrol’s fifth album, “One Hundred Million Suns” starts out strong but quickly runs out of fuel after only a few songs.
The Irish rockers’ latest album shows some attempts to expand their sound, giving it a more epic quality. The result however, is wildly uneven. The starting trilogy of songs shows off this ambitious direction, especially “Take Back The City,” one of the best songs on the album.
After the opening trilogy though, the songs start to become bland and all sound like different versions of the first three tracks. The epic songs begin to sound like Coldplay and don’t offer anything new. This is the real shame of this album because there are moments throughout “A Hundred Million Suns” where you can hear potential for an innovative and interesting song but the band winds up moving in the opposite direction. The worst case of this repetitive nature can be found in “Set Down Your Glass” and “The Planets Bend Between Us.” These songs are so similar in instrumentation, tone, and speed that they sound like one could easily be part of the other.
The final track, “The Lighting Strikes,” slightly redeems the rest of the album with a 16-minute suite chaining three tracks together. While this track does run a little too long, it is a very innovative and pleasant surprise that is very much in Snow Patrol’s style but different enough to stand out.
If Snow Patrol is to keep its fans interested and gain new ones, their closing track of “A Hundred Million Suns” should be a direction they should strongly consider for their next album. It’s time for this band to break away from being Coldplay’s echo and show the world what epic really is.
Key Tracks: “If There’s A Rocket Tie Me To It,” “Take Back The City,” “The Lightning Strike”
Coming soon...my Grammy predictions. Who should win, who will win, and who should have been nominated. Stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment