Review Summary: Chasing Cars rules.
I'm always late with bands. I was late with The Black Halo. I was late with liking Dream Theater. I was late with pretty much every band. Part of me blames this on me avoiding mainstream radio like a plague, always searching for more "underground" music to pollute the airwaves in my room. So when two years ago, the indie/britpop scene jacked off collectively to the new Snow Patrol single called "Chasing Cars", I wasn't one of them. I'd shut myself up in my room listening to Nightwish and Sonata Arctica all day when I was missing out on what mainstream alternative rock radio could actually offer; genuinely good records!
It's been so long since I listened to this type of music that first, when I decided to crawl out of my shell, I stumbled upon the usual suspects: Radiohead, Coldplay, those sorts of bands. But after seeing Snow Patrol being recommended, I decided to just dive in the deep end, and behold, power ballad deluxe Chasing Cars infected me like cholera in a third world country. Soon I couldn't stop playing it; and I'd be stupid not to. Taking the best elements from Coldplay and Travis, its chiming guitar arpeggio evolves into a grand finale as Lightbody's lyrics circle around that all-encompassing theme of Love. "All that I am / All that I ever was / is here in your perfect eyes / They're all I can see" he croons, and as the strings and guitar swell behind him, you're filled with that sense of satisfaction that only the good hit singles give.
The rest of the album isn't quite up to that standard, but Lightbody and consorts do manage to cook up some other interesting songs that occasionally make chills run down your spine. The pseudo-title-track "Open Your Eyes" comes in with a very U2-ish guitar line, but its climax at the end is one Bono wishes he'd had written for about every song on the Joshua Tree. "Set the Fire To The Third Bar" features female crooner Martha Wainwright (yes, the sister-of), and its desperately sparse guitar/piano arrangement aids the duet very well (think Anathema's Parisienne Moonlight). And lyrically, he isn't bereft of ideas for these tracks; describing a long-distance relationship with verve "And miles away from where you are / I lay down on the cold ground and I / I pray that something picks me up / sets me down in your warm arms".
However, where Snow Patrol seem to drop the ball is on the relatively heavier tracks; "Hands Open"'s chugging intro riff just seems a tad too abrasive for the polished interior of the record, and "Headlights on Dark Roads" just doesn't make a big Coldplay fan want to listen. Snow Patrol have a knack for these slow balladesque tracks that seem to crescend at the end, were they almost like an understandable Sigur Ros with double the restraint. Closer "The Starting Line"'s subtle electronica and slow tempo seems like something that could have been taken off ( ), were Gary Lightbody sporting a patronymic surname and had he decided to extend his track by a few minutes.
In the end, Snow Patrol is still music for the love-depraved (or craving), however, and the abundance of midtempo easy-listening tracks will obviously keep songs like "Chasing Cars" spinning for ages on mainstream rock radio. Snow Patrol aren't innovative like Radiohead are, or as pretentious as Muse; they're, above all, normal guys making songs about common topics using common melodies everyone can appreciate. And with the album this chock full of good tunes, I don't think anyone is going to hold that against them.
