Snow Patrol - Fall Empires
Northern Ireland's Snow Patrol are back with their sixth studio album and are claiming to have been inspired by Arcade Fire's 'The Suburbs', LCD Soundsystem's 'The Sound of Silver', and U2's 'Achtung Baby'.
'The Weight Of Love' has an epic sound, but somehow, never actually becomes an epic song. 'The Weight Of Love' sounds like classic Snow Patrol, with fast paced guitars, and perfectly shows off Gary Lightbody's vocal prowess. The album finds its feet in the second half, housing some great sounding songs - 'New York' and 'The Sympathy', it's a shame that the whole album isn't as strong.
"Fallen Empires" has plenty of thrusting basslines, synths and the occasional hint of electronica, but every single track is still recognisable as Snow Patrol, and Lightbody's vocals are still as dominating as ever. While there are some decent tracks on here, it's all a little too try-hard.
Lightbody has admitted that he struggled with writers block during the production of this album, and sadly I think it shows. Yes, they have teetered into slightly new territory, but as previously mentioned it is still recognisable as Snow Patrol, meaning radio friendly music with catchy hooks and choruses.
"Fallen Empire" is definitely Snow Patrol's most spirited album to date, it wont alienate long-term fans, but it also will not win them hordes of new followers. It's a shame that Snow Patrol were only brave enough to dip their toes into the dark, murky waters of experimentation, rather than taking a big leap of faith, because I think they could have come up with something special.
Snow Patrol refer to themselves as experimental, now, there are a variety of styles found on "Fallen Empires" but it's far from experimental. It would be fair to say the album is ordinary, the songs are nice, but they're also safe. "Fallen Empires" will go down well with Snow Patrol fans because it is pretty much exactly what they have come to expect.