T
hey've been around since the late 90's, and
Final Straw is their third album, yet I was unaware of the existence of the Brit-band
Snow Patrol until, a few weeks ago, I heard a masterpiece of a song on the radio. (It wasn't DC radio, of course, don't get me started - but KEXP out of Seattle has an internet feed and a nice early morning show that makes for a nice mid-morning show here on the east coast.) "Run" is a cinematic third-act climax in pop song form, switching from morose verse to a soaring chorus that could have you singing along with your eyes closed, in public. (Be forewarned.) A typical posting on message boards: "fecking brilliant."
Ok, so it closely resembles Coldplay's "Yellow" in spirit (the video even involves a lot of similar slo-mo perambulation). But hey, "Yellow" was also fecking brilliant.
Where did this come from? If I had paid closer attention, I might have seen that Snow Patrol was on Jeepster records, home to the twee pop of Belle & Sebastian, which would have certainly piqued my interest. I might have seen that Snow Patrol was active in the Glasgow music-scene, which is having quite a run producing acts like Belle & Sebastian, Idlewild, Arab Strap, Mogwai, and now Franz Ferdinand. But as it turns out, I was selfishly happy to discover that I wasn't completely out of touch - Snow Patrol wasn't that well-known at home either. Their deal with Jeepster ended after their second album, and they didn't seem to be happy with Jeepster's promotion, or being lumped in with twee pop bands. With a brief hiatus and a new label (Black Lion), Final Straw seemed to take the UK by surprise last autumn, too. "A great leap forward," "a remarkable return," a "second chapter" - Final Straw was just re-released in Britain with two bonus tracks, and their entire UK tour is now sold out.
So what does the rest of the album have to offer? Several more certified gems, and a diverse collection of solid guitar-driven songs - the Coldplay-esque style of "Run" is actually almost an anomaly. The album as a whole feels much more, well, American - but I don't mean that as a slam. Snow Patrol wouldn't feel out of place on an emo triple-bill with Dashboard Confessional or Jimmy Eat World. The obvious highlights: opener "How to Be Dead" manages to make a song structure that essentially hangs on a single repeated musical phrase, yet turns it into something catchy and compelling (Please take it easy, it can't all be my fault / I haven't made half the mistakes that you've listed so far). "Spitting Games" combines a driving beat with a memorable "ooh-ooh" embellishment. "Chocolate" follows (Just because I'm sorry doesn't mean / I didn't enjoy it at the time), glueing together "Spitting" and "Run" into a mid-album hat trick. "Somewhere a Clock is Ticking" moves from somewhat intricate guitars and vocal trade-offs in the verse, to a bursting hypnotic fuzz of a chorus.
Actually, as I continue working through rest of the tracks, I keep finding new things to like, and that should say as much as anything. So I'll stop now.
You can join the Snow Patrol April 17th at the 9:30 Club for a lousy $10 - it's a late show, but you can get there early and see what hardcore Sugar Ray fans look like.
And for those of you who stayed through the credits ... I'm also a fan of bands with enough of a sense of humor to do the odd cover or two ... from a BBC Radio session, here's Snow Patrol's version of "
Crazy in Love" complete with the original gratuitous rapping ...
