Snow Patrol conquered the world in 2006 with their smash-hit single “Chasing Cars,” and now, only two years later, they have set their sights even higher, namely to “A Hundred Million Suns.”? Snow Patrol formed in 1994 in Northern Ireland and spent the next nine years toiling in indie-rock obscurity.
?”We spent 10 years making records that 6000 people bought,” said lead singer Gary Lightbody of the band’s early years.
Things changed dramatically for the band in 2001 with the release of “Final Straw,” which featured the hit singles “Run” and “Chocolate.” Three years later Snow Patrol released their fourth and most successful album, “Eyes Open,” which featured “Chasing Cars.”
The success of the song was astronomical. It hit No. 1 on charts all around the world, from America to Singapore the song was inescapable. “Chasing Cars” was even voted as the “Best Song of All Time” by listeners of Virgin Radio.
Following up this type of success is a daunting task, but fortunately for fans, Snow Patrol was more then up to it. “A Hundred Million Suns,” the band’s fifth album, was released on Oct. 28, 2008 and while it never manages to top its predecessor in terms of shear pop music firepower, “Suns” does provide a strong collection of beautifully crafted and thought-provoking tracks. ?
It’s unlikely that anything off of “A Hundred Million Suns” will steal the “Best Song of All Time” award away from “Chasing Cars,” but that doesn’t mean the songs won’t get stuck in your head.
The disc’s opener entitled “If There’s A Rocket Tie Me To It,” is the best pop song on the record. It easily ranks near the top of Snow Patrol’s work, and once the chorus kicks in it’s almost impossible not to sing along.
“This is a love record rather then a break-up record, but wonderful as that may be, it’s set in the context of a world that’s a terrifying as it is beautiful. Which is why a lot of the imagery refers to space. As in ‘get us out of here,'” said Lightbody of the album’s “spacey” theme.
“Crack The Shutters,” the album’s second track, will certainly appeal to fans won over by the hopeless romanticism of “Chasing Cars.” Lightbody described it as “the purest love song I’ve ever written.”
Not all of the CD’s 11 tracks are love songs, however. Twice on the album Lightbody decides to take a break from all of that to pay homage to the place where he grew up.
The first instance of this is on the rallying cry “Take Back The City.” The song was written about Belfast, but could be applied to “any city,” according to Lightbody. The song’s fast tempo provides an interesting counter-point to the mellower “Crack The Shutters.”
“The Planets Bend Between Us (For You)” is also about Northern Ireland, though it would be fairly easy to misconstrue this track as a love song. It is actually written about Lightbody’s house in Belfast. The song is also a return to the album’s space theme.
The song also features the line “A hundred million suns,” which “just cried out to be the album title,” according to Lightbody. He went on to say that the album’s title “captures the vastness of the universe and us as tiny dots within it.”
Other standout tracks on the disc include “Set Down Your Glass” and “The Lightning Strike.” The former is another of the album’s moving love songs, while the later is a 16-minute-long epic. The song is actually three smaller songs: “What If This Storm Ends,” “Sunlight,” and “Daybreak,” that just happened to fit together perfectly.
“A Hundred Million Suns” is a record about love that demonstrates just how much Snow Patrol has grown over the years. It would have been easy, and safe, to write an album full of “Chasing Cars” clones and then sit back and watch the money roll in. Instead the band has crafted a challenging and beautiful record, one whose tracks probably won’t conquer the world, but will certainly stay with you long after the music ends.
Colin McGlinchey is a fourth-year student majoring in English with a minor in journalism. He can be reached at CM646588@wcupa.edu.