Snow Patrol - Fallen Empires (Album review)

Snow Patrol’s long awaited sixth studio album and follow up to the mediocre ‘A Hundred Million Suns’ is released just as the world watched the band’s exciting MTV EMA performance in Belfast.

Although a little predictable, “Fallen Empires” incorporates everything you've come to expect from a Snow Patrol album; radio friendly, unadorned, anthemic indie pop balladry, with only a few subtle alterations.

This record retains all that is to be celebrated about the band, honing their penchant for a surging, nostalgia driven chorus, encumbered only by synth laden tracks such as opener “I’ll Never Let Go” and single “Called out in the Dark” as the band briefly threaten to enter the uncharted waters of four to the floor pop electronica.

Album highlight “This Isn’t Everything You Are”, which is to be the second single released, is Snow Patrol at their finest - epic, vibrant and  bracing all at the same time. It follows suit of the likes of ‘Open Your Eyes‘, ‘Signal Fire’ and even ‘Run‘, leaving you actually questioning whether you might have heard this song on one of their previous albums.

Listen to all fourteen tracks though and you can’t help but feel the album should have been shorter; songs like “The Garden Rules” and “The President” would have been best relegated to the B Sides.

“Fallen Empires” is no world beater, it is in no way an album that will define a generation, nor is it as good as their first two major label releases. But it’s another consistent offering from the band, a body of work that clings to an all too familiar formula, yet still manages to captivate the listener. There’s no major shift in ethos by Gary Lightbody and co. but if it’s not broke, why fix it?

And as the band claim that a seventh album is already written, I wonder whether Snow Patrol can deliver an album that could still yet define their career, propelling them to the heights of the likes of U2 or Coldplay.
For now though, “Fallen Empires” is a solid reminder that the Bangor band are the best at what they do; fourteen simple pop songs that are sure to stir euphoric emotion as they soar in UK arenas and beyond, even if you are left believing that Snow Patrol are still missing something.

Highlights: I’ll Never Let go, This Isn’t Everything You Are, Called Out in The Dark. 


Craig Hannan