By Nabi DresslerNews Editor
Irish/Scottish band Snow Patrol, most famous for their 2006 hit, “Chasing Cars,” didn’t chase after originality with their sixth album, Fallen Empires.
Released on Nov. 11 in the UK and Jan. 10 in the U.S., the overall sound of Fallen Empires is exactly what I expected from Snow Patrol.
Fallen Empires is not dissimilar to most of their other albums. With this album, Snow Patrol manages to, again, fade into the background of the rock scene. Fallen Empires isn’t at all a bad album to listen to when you feel like letting loose. It’s quite peaceful and easy on the ears. It’s the type of album I’d have playing in the background while reading a book.
I think that’s the problem, though. Fallen Empires is, alas, one of those albums with songs doomed to become part of the weak soundtrack of a semi-popular T.V. show, not having a large impact on the listener, not blowing the listener away.
When I listen to an album, I want the album to make it impossible for me not to stop whatever I’m doing at that moment in order to focus solely on listening to it. I want the album to provoke that much emotion. Fallen Empires just didn’t do it for me.
I do have to give props to Snow Patrol for making a basic album about tackling life’s basic obstacles that even the best of us have to deal with at some point or another. This can be seen in the song In The End, with the lyrics, “Why can’t we laugh, when it’s all we have?/Have we put these childish things away?/Have we lost the magic that we once had?”
Point in short, this Snow Patrol album sounds like another attempt at a kind-of solid, standard indie album with just a touch of new electronic sound to keep the listeners entertained. Other than that, however, the band sounds like they haven’t had any progression in their sound for years.
