Snow Patrol - 'Take Back The City'
It must be quite daunting being Gary Lightbody. Imagine the pressure involved in having to get your band together in a studio, ready to record some new material, all the while knowing that one of your songs - 'Chasing Cars', obv - is considered by some people to be the best musical thing which has ever happened (out of a list of 500 other musical things which are also considered to be very good too). What are you supposed to do with that kind of thought?
It must, to some degree, make you want to do one of two things, if not both at the same time:
Thing 1: Make a record which is very, very different from the one everyone loves so much, to prove that their opinion has no impact upon your muse, and that you are doing it for the art, not the popularity.
Thing 2: Make a record which is as much like the one everyone loves so much as you can possibly manage without running into trouble from your own lawyers for copyright infringment. This is because OMG it worked the first time, all you need to do is a couple more hits like that and you can buy Inverness, man.
Being intelligent and creative sorts, the 'Trol have realised that this is the case, and have devised a third way. They have put together a song which is faster than your average Snow Patrol single, and dancier than your average Snow Patrol single, but which still carries with it the band's trademark sonic bigness and wafty self-importance, in case you thought the Scissor Sisters had done a duet with Doves, or something.
It passes the time agreeably, and causes the exact same outbreak of frenzied indifference in these ears that all of their best songs have done to date. Whether this means that it qualifies as the best musical thing ever is not for me to judge, I was voting for 'Love Shack' at the time...
Download: Out now
CD Released: October 13th
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comment number 1.
At 29th Nov 2008, musichyper wrote:Snow patrol write great ballads but "Take Back the City" is way off track. It just sounds like they're not comfortable in their own skin when doing an up beat rock song.
I hyped it on Everhype and scored it 61% which I think is fairly accurate.
I wouldn't mind getting some opinions on it . If you get on there, rate me a 5 & request friendship.
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