Disco de Snow Patrol: “Eyes Open [Limited]”

Indie kids added Snow Patrol to their mixes with the band's 1998 debut "Songs for Polar Bears," whose title references a previous incarnation of the group. How could you not love a Scottish indie band with chops big enough to cover "Crazy in Love" by Beyonce Knowles as a B-side?(Yes, the bootylicious singer from Destiny's Child and "Austin Powers.")

Snow Patrol relies on atmospheric, pop-tinged melodies, shimmering keyboards, and distorted guitars characteristic of the Glasgow alternative scene of the 1990s, overlaid with lead singer Gary Lightbody's floating tenor. The band's fourth disc, "Eyes Open", builds on the band's signature style.

Songs like "Make This Go On Forever", "Headlights on Dark Roads", and duet with Martha Wainwright "Set the Fire To The Third Bar" hypnotize with dark imagery and minored vocal chords. "You Could be Happy" and "Shut Your Eyes" lend a sense of acoustic purity to the album.(Both were recorded live in one session; you can hear chairs creaking, breathing, and feet tapping in both, but it just adds to the mood.)

The self-described "emotional knife-twisting" of Lightbody's lyrics is absent from the album's biggest single to date, "Chasing Cars." Like "Run", "Chasing Cars" is a deceptively simple love song filled with "garden[s] bursting into life" and "wasting time" with the one you love. "Cars" gets a lot of radio play across the FM band in Boston, from Emerson College's eclectic WERS 88.9 to Top 40-Music-In-A-Can Kiss 108.Whatever station it's played on, it's almost always followed by a moment of silence and the DJ saying "Wow, what a beautiful song."

True to form, "Eyes Open" starts with aggressive guitar riffs and builds to a rousing, uplifting finish. Repetition of a single chorus "tell me that you'll open your eyes" and increasing production layers in "Open Your Eyes" pull listeners willingly across "The Finish Line." This last track reminds us that finish lines are "good place[s] to start."

If there's any justice left in the music industry, "Eyes Open" should be a starting point for even better things from this talented quintet.

Seen it all before. Honest, musically excellent, heart-on-sleeve band toils under the radar for years, finally hits paydirt, goes mainstream, production-happy, and loses its soul. For me, this is like the denouement of Supertramp in the early 80's, with similarities. Supertramp finally hit paydirt with the slick "Breakfast in America", but the band's co-founders couldn't agree on direction after that. A final album followed, far inferior to the epic, and the band splintered.

Now for Snow Patrol we have the aftermath of the brilliant Final Straw...Lightbody sacks original member bassist McClelland, throws himself into producer Jacknife's camp, and comes out with the formulaic Eyes Open. It is a cd devoid of soul. Where Final Straw had a dozen excellent tunes, Eyes Open has but two that interest me: "Shut Your Eyes" and "Make This Go on Forever." Sadly, I'll have to keep playing my Reindeer Section cds, Final Straw, and When This is All Over We Still Have to Clear Up and hope Lightbody learns from this egregious error and comes up with something less slick next time. Unfortunately, if this dreck sells well, he'll churn out more of the same. Ah well, Nobody's perfect, that's what I say. I'm sorry.

nothing strange about this band being compared to coldplay; their music does mine a similar vein of sound. this is lush, powerful music, with big times waiting ahead. they should find mass appeal with this stuff, and there's nothing wrong with that. a strong, strong effort that deserves its big audience. long may snow patrol run.

I love Snow Patrol, I really do. Final Straw is a great album and it made me go out and buy their older stuff (that I could find). I even saw them last year at Coachella and was really impressed by their live show.

But this album is really disappointing.

It's really produced, to the point where it seems like the question when recording it was "how do we make this song appeal to the most people?" There's an edginess that's lost on this album. To that end, it doesn't feel as sincere, either.

The vocals are probably the easiest to point to, as what once sounded like heartfelt indie rock now seems like light rock crooning.

I had high hopes for Snow Patrol -- and for this album -- but those hopes weren't realized.

I love this album. I was enamoured of the Chasing Cars song from radio and decided to check out the rest of the CD. I am very pleased with the purchase. In addition to Chasing Cars, You're All I Have and Shut Your Eyes are standout songs. I plan to check out the older albums from Snow Patrol.