Review Summary: forgettable, pretty and enjoyable
When It’s All Over We Still Have to Clear Up sits at an interesting position in Snow Patrol’s discography. Just after their fun yet immature debut
Songs For Polarbears and before their commercial breakthrough in
Final Straw. It still has the indie sound of Snow Patrol’s first years, while being more experienced and mature than they were at their debut.
In a interview with The Times front man Gary Lightbody claimed that the success of
Final Straw was due to him learning how to write a chorus, and indeed,
When It’s All Over We Still Have to Clear Up isn’t an album of the big grandiose choruses, like their more recent pop rock sound is. That’s alright for the most part,
When It’s All Over We Still Have to Clear Up is quite catchy as it is. At some moments though, a good chorus could work in their favor. A chorus can give a song something to remember, and now some tracks remain fairly unmemorable. Take the title track for example: it’s a great song, but with its uninteresting chorus, sang by Lightbody’s mumbling voice, it remains quite forgettable. It also happens that songs keep repeating the same line; the way Lightbody sings “
firelight” in the closer is certainly lovely, but to hear it for four minutes straight gets pretty damn tiring (and no the occasionally repeating of “
we won’t get much sleep” doesn’t make it any better)
This boringness isn’t so bad, unfortunately is
When It’s All Over We Still Have to Clear Up also occasionally just straight up awful. Especially the abysmal first single “Ask Me How I Am” is bad; with its very annoying “
hey alright/do alright” throughout the song and the boring acoustic guitar on the background playing the same thing over. Follow up track “Making Enemies” would be easier to put in the “boring” category if it wasn’t for the annoying yeah’s in the chorus. The last two tracks aren’t awful, but they are, like mentioned in the second paragraph about the closer “Firelight’’, so repeating that it becomes a chore to listen to them.
Luckily there is enough good in
When It’s All Over We Still Have to Clear Up. Honestly, the 4 to 8 track stretch is amazing. Starting off with the softest singing voice Gary Lightbody probably ever sang in de beginnings of “Black and Blue”, which would later turn in a straight out rocker. Later the upbeat track “Last Ever Lone Gunman”, the beauty of the quiet “If I’d Found the Right Words to Say” and the lush acoustics of “Batten Down the Hatch” show Snow Patrol’s greatest strengths in a short amount of time. The stretch ends with the horribly catchy “One Night Is Not Enough” which will stay in your mind for a while with the unforgettable “
it’s not me that you love” shouts in the chorus. Another track worth a mention is “An Olive Growing Facing The Sea”. It’s a pretty, quiet song with wonderful horns on the background, and one of the few songs on here with a big and well functioning chorus.
So, this album is quite forgettable, even awful at times, but it is also enjoyable. Especially the song stretch 4-8 and the fantastic “An Olive Growing Facing The Sea”, which stands as one of the best things Snow Patrol has ever done, are really good. Most of the unmemorable tracks too are quite good, even though you’ll forget them within a hour. Overall though are the shortcomings of
When It’s All Over We Still Have to Clear Up too big to ignore, and can this album nothing more than pretty good.
