Review Summary: The ultimate winter romance album.
Sometimes an album just has to be the beneficiary of the right moment in order to sink in. Perhaps it was the band’s name that subconsciously led me to take out my Snow Patrol disc one brutally cold winter evening, or maybe it was the thought of the album’s title, A Hundred Million Suns, and I wanted to enter a place that would keep me warm. The ground outside was covered in snow, and as I watched it all continue to pile up, the lyrics to “The Lightning Strike” seemed to sum up the moment perfectly: “What if this storm ends and leaves us nothing, except a memory; a distant echo.” This is the closing track, so other lyrical gems such as: “The winters mar the Earth, it's floored with frozen glass” and “Your freezing speech bubbles seem to hold your words aloft” already passed by and had left me mesmerized in a snow-themed trance. Putting individual perceptions aside, though, there is still a decidedly winter-like theme that runs throughout the entire album. From the lyrics to the music itself, an audible landscape of ice, snow, cold, and stars is portrayed for the listener. Combine this with the band’s usual lyrical content of love/relationships, and you have the ultimate winter romance album. No, this isn’t as commonplace as your summer love album, but when executed like it is on this disc, the results are every bit as fun and far more alluring.
I feel it is appropriate to start things off by saying that I expected much less from Snow Patrol. After Eyes Open, I was anticipating another step in the direction of boring, mainstream soft rock. And while they may have made yet another footprint in that territory, they definitely made it a unique mark in the process. The album lends itself more to atmospheric and spacey undertones than any of their previous work did. “The Lightning Strike” is easily the most relevant example, as the song is a combination of three movements that flow together as smoothly as snow covered the ground after that storm. At over 16 minutes in length, the song comes as close to “epic” status as a band like Snow Patrol probably ever will. It begins with the first and nearly progressive movement, “What If This Storm Ends”, which features haunting piano notes and a brass choir. The second movement takes the disheartened aura of the first and lifts it up just in time for the third song within the same track, “Daybreak”. “Daybreak” serves as the perfect closer to both the song and the album, embodying many of the same themes as it spreads the uplifting tiding, “Something was bound to go right sometime today, all these broken pieces fit together to make a perfect picture of us…and in the middle of the flood I felt my worth, when you held onto me like I was your little life raft…please know that you were mine as well.” As is evident from the many excerpts that I have already presented, the lyrics on this album shine and Gary Lightbody really distinguishes himself as a writer on this album. A 16 minute song is probably the last thing you would expect from Snow Patrol, but it is also the main reason that this album stands out. The band obviously wanted to take a few chances on this record, and with “The Lightning Strike”, it paid off by showing at least some resistance to the cookie cutter soft-rock-ballad formula that they have grown accustomed to.
This “atmospheric” feel is certainly not confined to one song, however, as “Lifeboats” and “The Golden Floor” belong in the same category of relative experimentalism. Most notably, “Lifeboats” starts with light strumming and then drags along behind trippy synthesizers and an extremely catchy beat. There is a thick cloud of mysteriousness surrounding the entire song, and it adds to the dream-like intrigue of the entire album. The same can be said for “The Golden Floor” which is among some of Snow Patrol’s most original work. It features a constant combination of light drum beats and hand claps, which actually manage to work within the ambience of the song. It ends with some soothing acoustic notes, making the two tracks feel like they deserve to be together (and they are, which was very good song placement). As a whole, A Hundred Million Suns is defined by the atmosphere that it creates. There are two distinct themes: winter and love. At some moments, the imagery is overwhelming and you find yourself in the middle of a snowstorm, holding onto your girl for warmth (“The Lightning Strike”). Other times, it manages to take you so far into space that, for a moment, you actually feel like you might be able to reach out and touch the stars (“Lifeboats/The Golden Floor”). But no matter what the content of the specific song may be, you can count on one thing: the music is going to take you somewhere.
With that said, it is still a Snow Patrol album and that means there are going to be singles. There are two tracks that were obviously crafted for the sole purpose of being accessible. The first, “Crack the Shutters” is a beautiful work that features everything you could want in a romantic ballad. Basic, yet purposeful strokes of the piano mark the intro before it explodes into the chorus, “Crack the shutters open wide I want to bathe you in the light of day…and just watch you as the rays tangle up around your face and body.” The other main single, “Take Back the City”, falls rather flat however. The definitive atmosphere created by other songs on this record is not matched here. The lyrics are not related to those in the other songs and the music sounds like it would have fit in better on the previous release, “Eyes Open”. In general, it is a decent radio single for the band, but it does very little to contribute to the album. They also have two straight forward ballads on this album, each succeeding in a similar way. “Set Down Your Glass” and “The Planets Bend Between Us” are both relatively forgettable ballads that still manage to find their way to the forefront of good songs on the album. This is once again due to the strength of the lyrics, which are both descriptive and metaphorical. Most importantly, though, they bring back the same themes (winter, love) that keep the album unified. Unity is also a key topic when discussing this album. Many feel that the A Hundred Million Suns is inconsistent. While this is certainly true at times, the dedicated listener might find that the lyrics and running motifs keep everything held together. Or maybe it is just as I said before…perhaps you just have to be in the right moment at the right time for this album to make sense. If that is the case, the music, themes, and lyrics of A Hundred Million Suns were meant to be listened to during the winter while watching snow fall gently to the ground.
In conclusion, there are a few things that everyone must realize about A Hundred Million Suns. First, like most pop music, it relies heavily on the strength of the lyrics. The music is atmospheric and at times even transcendental, but if you don’t pay much attention to the words being sung, you are missing out on a large portion of the experience. Second, it is still a Snow Patrol album. Yes, it is more abstract and experimental than their earlier works, but it is not going to bring death metal fans to their knees in a state of utter catharsis. A Hundred Million Suns is not likely to bring Snow Patrol many new fans in general, but it is certainly a treat for those who have appreciated their music over the course of the last decade. Lastly, this is the band’s best work to date. They strayed from the formula slightly. They were self-indulgent. They took risks. Ultimately they succeeded, and the result is an album that gives us some of the best music Snow Patrol has ever created.
