Earlier this month, Snow Patrol debuted at the top of the UK album chart with their fourth full-length, Eyes Open. Glasgow's finest Zippo-rockers held the top spot as if consoling a lover, fending off Pearl Jam before givin' it away to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Led by singer/guitarist Gary Lightbody, Snow Patrol first went major with 2004's Final Straw, which led to the huge UK top five single "Run" and a slot opening for Ireland's most overrated Nobel Peace Prize nominee (and friends). The quintet had come a long way from their roughshod early recordings for indie label Jeepster-- and more importantly, they were better.
If Eyes Open lacks the vivacity of its breakthrough predecessor, it remains an assured example of a band still paying more than lip service to the notion of rock music as a vital pop form. On an album of sparks and explosions, Lightbody signals his world-stopping ambitions: "For once I want to be the car crash/ And not just another traffic jam." Lyrically, Lightbody continues to be transfixed by the personal. His specialty is the Wile E. Coyote phase of new love-- the stomach-fluttering poignancy of stepping off that happy cliff and trying not to look down-- and he details it with the emotional acuity of his hero, Lou Barlow. This time Snow Patrol's bustling power-pop sounds almost as close to the 1990s radio fodder of the Gin Blossoms as to Sebadoh's antisocial din, but strings, finely layered guitars, and even a choir help the band achieve its chosen mood: "We need to feel breathless with love," Lightbody prescribes in falsetto.
Opener "You're All I Have" sets the chugging pace with simple, subtle lyrics and oohing background vocals. There's a pleasingly self-deluded sophistry in a chorus like, "I have no fear/ Because you are all that I have." The more muscular second track, "Hands Open", begs for feedback-painted forgiveness-- "It's hard to argue when you won't stop making sense"-- with an equally radio-friendly hook. In a subdued moment you'll either love or hate, Lightbody namedrops your 50-state overlord, Sufjan Stevens. Call me insufficiently elitist, but I find power in the idea of tens of thousands of young listeners discovering a wider musical world thanks to one tightly packed pop song. (And frankly, anyone bugged by this should have found new ways to feel superior by now.)
At its aching best, Eyes Open takes the style of Final Straw to its shiny, populist conclusion-- not that it will completely free the band of comparisons to similarly anthemic mediocrities like Keane. Massive ballad "Chasing Cars" is a bland follow-up to "Run", with uncharacteristic platitudes rather than the original's bare drama; "Set the Fire to the Third Bar" features Martha Wainwright's elfin vocals but gets overwhelmed by its own deadly seriousness. Still, the skywalking heartburst of "Beginning to Get to Me" and music-box melancholy of "You Could Be Happy" at least atone somewhat. If it's hard to imagine the name "Suff-yawn" being sung in arenas, try imagining a band that once called itself Polar Bear somehow playing there.
