Snow Patrol, Final Straw Review

Good Points
One of the best new bands to emerge from the indie shadows this decade, on this evidence

Bad Points
Clearly a style has been developed, that works, and they are sticking to it.

General Comments
Snow Patrol, Final Straw was an album I purchased purely on the suggestion of a friend, who was quite insistent without necessarily being 100% up my street in terms of music taste. Thankfully I was in a charitable mood that day... I think I listen to this album as much as anything else a year on and it's how these things stand the test of time that is the real key to their quality.

I know the other reviewers have done a sterling job of explaining the high points of this album, as well as mentioning that we should all go off and buy all their earlier stuff. So I'm just going to chuck in a couple of other remarks.

First, I really like one of the bonus tracks, Half the Fun (or whatever its called)... it fairly skips along like a demented dervish... a really loose and quick romp that would have been a scandal to leave on the cutting room floor.

I have a lot of time for the slower tracks on the album too there's a lot more in those songs where the producer has held back on trying to make it a top 10 hit, it gives the band more space to create something uniquely theirs. This they do almost at every turn.

Of course you cannot mention this album without talking about Run. I can't profess to know what he's talking about, except that it's situationally based and if you weren't there or haven't had some journo spell it out for you, it could mean a number of things. but that's not the point, this is anthemic moderate rock at its best and is a stadium song you'll hear other bands cover for decades to come. On paper, the chords, C, G, A and F don't actually sound that enchanting... the way they are combined and emphasised on this song makes it a classic. Trust me, in 2016 we'll still know how it goes. Great album.