When It’s All Over We Still Have to Clear Up
Snow Patrol
With the benefit of hindsight, I can’t help but conclude that the clutch of singles from ‘Final Straw’ was perhaps Snow Patrol’s finest hour. I remember hearing Run with its anthemic chorus ‘Light up/Light up/As if you had a choice,’ and they were right, I didn’t. This was followed by Spitting Games, Chocolate, How to be Dead, one melodic slice of indie-rock after another. Which is why ‘When It’s All Over’ is such a disappointment. There’s nothing particularly distinctive about it with too many tracks falling into a mid-tempo morass of indistinguishability. And why do so many songs start with the repetition of a lyric?
The lead single from their new album ‘Eyes Open’ flirted worryingly with generic arena-sized rock and follow-up single Chasing Cars sounds like more of the same.
Is this it?