LONG WAYISEIR TO SNOW
In association with
BLOSSOMS: Gary
Fifth album time for the indie outfit, and opening track Big Star ponders the price of fame, rather than the notoriously unsuccessful cult 1970s
Memphis band.
Songs like the infectious title track show their pure pop side on the tale of a stolen 8-foot-tall fibreglass gorilla.
Based on a real-life heist from a Lanarkshire garden centre last year, the video features Everton manager Sean
Dyche and Rick Astley. Meanwhile the nostalgic Mothers references “dancing to The Smiths and Rick Astley” back in the 80s – a cheeky reference to how Blossoms have backed Astley singing a set of Smiths songs. Nightclub – “the queue’s half a mile long” – and Slow Down have a 1980s New Romantic feel.
These tunes should sound great when they play Dublin’s Academy on November 16.
7/10 SNOW Patrol have been on quite a journey for the last 30 years — from their early years forming as a student band in Dundee to creating hits that have become beloved across the world.
The line-up has evolved since its formation in the 1990s, but the most major change came last year when long-term band members drummer Jonny Quinn and bassist Paul Wilson announced their departure.
The remaining trio of Irish-born musicians – Gary Lightbody, Nathan Connolly and Johnny McDaid – were left heartbroken but wished them well and have powered on to produce their emotionally charged eighth studio album.
“On a band level, just the three of us feel stronger and more connected than we’ve ever done”, says frontman Lightbody as the band release their first record in six years.
“And I’m so excited to bring this album out that we’ve made... and get to gigging around the world.”
The singer-songwriter from Bangor has been on his own path of evolution, having gone sober in 2016. Based in his native Co Down, he is now practising cold water dips in the sea, hot yoga and meditating,
“I think there’s been a lot of evolution as people, as musicians, songwriters”, he says, reflecting on how the group has transformed over the years.
“Johnny and Nathan are two my favourite people in the universe and my brothers and I love them with all my heart, but I’m not going to speak for them.
“But for me, personally, my evolution has been glacial, but over 30 years, you can chart it.”
And he feels adopting these new practices over the last decade has sped us his evolution, adding: “All the things that I do for my mind
– I think, on a personal level – made my life immeasurably better.”
Connecting with the landscape of his home country has also become part of his routine and served as an inspiration for their new record – The Forest Is The Path.
During his walks through the local forests he would note down phrases and lyrics, which later became the basis for the album.
“I hadn’t really done that before”,
Lightbody muses. “Normally we don’t do any preparation. We just go and sit down and start writing and see what happens.
■ SOUL MAN: Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody
“And musically, that’s what we did. We always do that. But lyrically, I had a whole bunch of lyrics beforehand, pages and pages and pages that I was able to then plant into blank pages…
“It was so helpful. Definitely going to do that for every other album that we make, actually do some preparation. Maybe I should have been doing that for the last 30 years.”
The 12-track album, their first since 2018’s Wildness, offers their classic sound with punchy
■ drums, flares of guitar and Lightbody’s signature vocals. It also has a sense of vulnerability as it dives into love, loss and time. “I want to be in love / Without being loved in return”, croons Lightbody on the single The Beginning. The introspective and deeply personal lyric being born from the singer having not been in a relationship for a long time.
“I had never had the opportunity to explore that before because I’ve never been 10 years away from a relationship before,” he says.
“It might be the only time I get to do that, I might meet someone tomorrow, I have no idea. So now I guess was the time for that.” While love is explored, he the main focus of the record is the complexities of time. Lightbody hopes they can remain true to their authenticity.
“I think the most important thing to hold true to is your own soul”, he says.
Snow Patrol’s new album, The Forest Is The Path, is out now.