Snow Patrol
Fallen Empires

THE REVIEW

An original and enjoyable brit-pop group to listen to.

That’s how you could briefly define Snow Patrol. When talking about this musical branch, you must first consider the heavy legacy left by the genre’s pioneers (Oasis, Verve, not insignificant names, indeed...). And listening to their previous albums, particularly Eyes Open, we can say that the Scottish quintet is doing quite well; the mere fact that since 2006 they have been progressively gaining recognition both musically and in terms of audience, without, however, converting their style to the masses, plays in their favor. Quite the opposite: this Fallen Empires does present some turning points, but in different terms. For instance, the group had rarely included electronic elements in their music. This is easily noticeable in the lead single, "Called Out in the Dark," which was fairly successful on the radio, as well as in the title track, where synthesizers overshadow the usual drum-guitar-bass setup. Nevertheless, the general atmosphere of the album is that of the typical Snow Patrol: an easy-listening pop-rock but not trivial, with melodies sometimes more complex (although never reaching extreme compositional peaks), and sometimes simpler and carefree (very lovely in this sense are "The President" and "This Isn't Everything You Are").

The album's strength remains, as usual, the extreme care in the lyrics, which, supported by Gary Lightbody’s beautiful voice, have the mysterious quality of being extremely poetic even if already heard (If your profile were curved over me, I would tell you that I loved you even before I met you, because I loved the because I loved the simple thought of you, says the aforementioned "New York"). Of course, it won’t be a new (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, but this is undoubtedly an album that has all the right qualities to be enjoyable to any ear.