Hands open (Snow Patrol) (LP 3831)

Snow Patrol  Eyes Open (CD, Polydor Records, 2006) ****  

Genre: Pop 

Places I remember: Morrisons

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Chasing Cars

Gear costume: Open Your Eyes, You're All I Have

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6

Active compensatory factors: For me, their best album (and I used to have them all). This is the only album I kept during a purge a few years back.

Mr Lightbody's vocals are perfect on this album, and the melancholy is balanced with wide eyed presence. It contains the classic Chasing Cars that everyone knows, but each of the songs are worthy. When I lived in the UK this album was massive and, fittingly, I bought it from the local Morrisons supermarket. That just seemed appropriate really. 

Gary Lightbody's vocals are so warm/comfortable and the production is of high quality. It's a great package.

Where do they all belong? I won't be adding to the Snow Patrol collection. This one, however, has earned its place.

You're cinematic razor sharp (Snow Patrol) #529

Snow Patrol You're All I Have/ The Only Noise/ Perfect Little Secret/ You're All I Have (video)  (Polydor, 2006)

Snow Patrol have taken a load of abuse in their time. Some of it is well deserved: their output since Eyes Open has been poor to say the least.

Luckily this track comes from Eyes Open and it's a storming rocker worthy of Snow Patrol at their best.

The production is certainly razor sharp, the sound: cinematic pop!

Hidden gems: The two tracks on the B side weren't included on the parent album. The Only Noise is somewhat slight but it's still a cool acoustically driven tune.

Perfect Little Secret is at the experimental end of their repertoire and so...not to my taste. 

Experimenting is great if you're King Crimson or, I don't know, Bowie, but if you're a great pop band with a fantastic lead singer - stick to that!

When you try your best but you don't succeed (Coldplay)

Two new albums under high rotate in Casa Wozza are new releases by Snow Patrol and Coldplay.

I have been a fan of both bands from release one and word "GO".

Each have managed to get themselves offside with the music press by selling gadzillions of units. Somehow that equates to mundane music in some people's eyes.

I must admit it took me a while to actually buy Parachutes, the first Coldplay album (and Songs For Polarbears, the first Snow Patrol album).

Parachutes was extremely popular and that always makes me a little suspicious - I don't like jumping on a bandwagon and I do have some aspects of the music snob - loving bands that no one else has heard of.

But I saw the first two Coldplay CDs in Tower Records in Bangkok and relaxed. I shouldn't have worried (or listened to the music snobs). Both albums are superb.

I also go against most critics position on X and Y - their third album. It's actually my favourite album of theirs and reminds me of driving around southern England in 2006.

The new one, Mylo Xyloto, has been on high rotate since I bought it. Purely because nothing seemed to stand out for ages. With repetition has come some clarity and some finer appreciation of the work, but it's not shaping up as their best work by a long chalk.

And what a crap cover. There is a strong self destructive streak in the band that emerges from time to time and never more obviously than with this shokingly pathetic cover. What the hell were they thinking?

Ditto x10 for the latest Snow Patrol album. It's okay and better than A Hundred Million Suns which was pretty dire. Looks increasingly like the band peaked with Final Straw and Eyes Open.

Gary Lightbody has a great voice but for some reason - too much success maybe - he doesn't seen willing or able to write those great melodies that were on those two albums. A case of McCartneyitis?

I've had Fallen Empires (how very apt) on rotate in the car and so far zilch. But I will persevere and I live in hope.

Meanwhile I was thrilled to find out in a Mojo interview that Chris Martin's favourite Coldplay song (more accurately he was asked for the song he'd written that he felt proudest of) is the same as mine from X and Y - Fix You.

Eight arms to hold you

Here's a few more recommended texts for Christine and other students of fine music. I left you last time with the Kooks. This post highlights another 8 greats from Great Britain. This time I've included a few older things but all are post millennium and all should appeal to pop fans. So, without any dilly dally - the story continues...

The Lighthouse Family 'Whatever Gets You Through The Day'. I could not let this list forget the great voice of Tunde. I know - it's not very fashionable to love the Lighthouse Family but for me they are a great marriage of modern production/beats and voice. This one is their last unfortunately. Tunde's solo album shows how much he needs the pop nuance of Paul Tucker. Each of the songs add to a cohesive whole and it contains the stone cold classic - '(I wish I Knew How it Would Feel To be) Free/One'. I love the video of this and by the magic of youtube - here it is:






Elbow 'Cast of Thousands'. All aboard for melancholy city. I kinda think of The Doves and Elbow as being similar in many ways but for me Elbow shades it. Not sure why - maybe the singing is a little more assured and distinctive, the variey level is maybe more positive and the songs are slightly more memorable. Moody mood music. It's interesting, isn't it, how much of my preferences are grouped under the 'alternative' tag in shop displays (you remember shop displays don't you?). I don't really see how this stuff is 'alternative'. It's just good pop music.

Travis 'The Boy With No Name'. This is the first album of theirs I've enjoyed since their break through smasharama 'The Man Who...' The albums inbetween have tried to veer away from that success but without the tunes. I'm sure they didn't sit around and think - okay how do we alienate our fanbase? But in effect that's what they've done until this album. It's back to melodies and lovely acoustic guitars and warm vocals. I bought each of the intervening albums but flicked them on pretty quickly. This one is a keep and a slow grower. It's songs, I suspect, will reveal more as time and repeated listenings go by.


Turin Brakes 'Dark On Fire'. More of the same from Turin Brakes (ie see Travis above, and earlier Turin Brakes efforts). The difference this time around are some stunning songs and much more confidence in their delivery. I got the first album from my friend, Roger Marbeck, and I've not grown tired of it yet. Every once in a while I need something with some soothing otherness as my soundtrack and now both Turin Brakes albums fill that need. The other one is called 'The Optimist'.




Oasis 'Heathen Chemistry'. I couldn't make a list of great British albums of recent times without some sort of representation from Oasis. The trouble is the last couple have not set the world on fire. And truth be told neither did Heathen Chemistry. I don't actually know why because it's a great set of songs, it sounds like classic Oasis, and it contains 'Stop Crying Your Heart Out'. An undervalued, overlooked pleasure of an Oasis album.





Stereophonics 'Language.Sex.Violence.Other'. This Welsh group have had some big hits and some real turkeys but LSVO is a fantastic collection of songs that display the group in its best, most unstodgy light. The guitar playing is razor sharp and the variety is welcome. Often the 'phonics get into a meat and potatoes grind but this one has a dynamic feel to it.






Snow Patrol 'Eyes Open'. For me their best album (and I have them all). Mr Lightbody's vocals are perfect and the melancholy is balanced with wide eyed presence. Contains the classic 'Chasing Cars' that everyone knows, but each of the songs is worthy. When I lived in the UK this album was massive and, fittingly, I bought it from the local Morrisons supermarket. That just seemed appropriate really. Gary Lightbody's vocals are so warm/comfortable. It's a great package.




Teenage Fanclub 'Four Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-Six Seconds'. I'm cheating slightly with this one cos it's a compilation but I love their guitar pop. They write really infectious hooks and play well. What's not to like with that combination.