Snow Patrol
A Hundred Million Suns
Geffen Records
Four Scoops of Bosco
Reviewed by Allen Bacon, Editor, The Daily Bosco
I recently heard two of the guys from Snow Patrol in a stripped-down, acoustic live setting. You can not really appreciate the craftsmanship and talent of this group until you hear them in the raw.
I really like the new album, A Hundred Million Suns, their fourth, which was released last month but it tends to skew toward the overproduced. Snow Patrol is the best thing to come out of Scotland since, well kilts and bagpipes, but like kilts and bagpipes they can be overdone sometimes.
No new ground is broken here...their powerpop approach is all very similar to their three other successful records. And you hear a lot of U2, Kings of Leon, Beck, and Coldplay influences in their music. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But if you're looking for original...not so fast.
That doesn't stop me from playing the dickens out of at least three songs. If There's A Rocket Tie Me To It not only has the greatest title for a song, but it rocks. Take Back The City is a great air-guitar song too. I had to make sure I kept my hands on the steering wheel on that one. And the emo-ballad Crack The Shutters is destined for Rock Classic status.
Great lyrics by Gary Lightbody and great musicianship by the entire band. But next time I would really like to see them put out a live unplugged album...then the rest of the world can appreciate how great these guys are even without all the slick production techniques.
The Bosco rating systems is based on a ranking of 1 to 5...5 being best.
No comments:
Post a Comment