KEY POINTS:
Rating: * *
Fear not, Coldplay fans. If this year's Viva La Vida was too upbeat and full of life for your liking, Snow Patrol has just the thing for you. An entire album of life-sucking piano rock just begging to be played at a funeral near you.
Last year's Eyes Open may have become a surprise hit thanks to a certain medical drama, but there are no surprises when it comes to the Irish lads' most recent offering.
Everything about the album has been carefully calculated to shift records. Every sentimental verse contrived to pull the heart strings, every chorus designed for a stadium-wide singalong. And, of course, it's available just in time for Christmas.
Musically, it's sound enough, but the whole concept is so disingenuous it can't help but leave a sour aftertaste.
Actually, that's not entirely true. Radio single Take Back the City is a jarring exercise in music making, as it shifts awkwardly in and out of key.
But perhaps this, too, is deliberate, as it makes listeners grateful for the boring but harmonious offerings that comprise the rest of the album. Each so inoffensively dull, not one is worth mentioning by its individual name.
The one exception is the epic closer The Lightning Strike. At 16 minutes long - four times the length of any other offering - it breaks the mould on more than one front.
Length aside, the song is easily the record's most interesting and inventive, waxing and waning from a soft and subtle piano melody to a restrained celestial cacophony, with brass band backing, distorted guitars and choral accompaniment.
Haphazard and experimental, it is the album's only genuine moment, hinting there may be life in these guys yet. Someone call a doctor.
Joanna Hunkin
