SNOW PATROL – FALLEN EMPIRES
Released 14th November 2011 (Fiction Records)

Words: Gaz Martinez

Ever since their debut album Final Straw, Snow Patrol have always crafted a similar sense of soft rock through the ages. With deceptively simple yet amazing (in my opinion) songs like Chocolate and Chasing Cars (There goes my integrity as a metal head!) they have managed to last as long as they have, not by changing styles with each new music/fashion trend that the industry regurgitates on an almost annual basis, but by managing to evolve their own style with each new album. The result is Fallen Empires which can be seen as the current culmination of all that the band has been through. Consequently, anybody expecting a grand departure will be ultimately disappointed, while there’re some fancy new synths here and there, such as in the title track, and This Isn’t Everything You Are, the record is totally recognisable as a Snow Patrol effort. With Gary Lightbody’s familiar lyrical concepts giving the songs the same gravitas we expect from him

The main question I find myself asking is, which song will be this albums Chasing Cars? There is plenty of material here that can be seen to rival said songs popularity. But therein lies what could be Snow Patrol’s fatal flaw, while each and every song is well crafted, if listened from start to finish, one will start to see the inherent familiarity, especially when this album is fourteen songs long.

Fortunately for Lightbody and friends, they are talented enough musicians and are able to give each song its own feel, so while similar to each other, The Weight of Love does not sound like a rehash of Called Out In The Dark, and Fallen Empires does not sound like a rehash of Final Straw. The only thing I find myself able to flaw however, is the sheer length of it all, cut it down to ten or eleven tracks, and you have a near perfect album.

That aside, Fallen Empires, is a testament to the band and how they are able to take very familiar concepts, tweak them only slightly and voila! You have something that is just as important to Snow Patrol as their debut. They could call it quits tomorrow and claim that at the last, they were still writing decent material worthy of purchasing.