Review Summary: A commendable attempt at making a great album that falls sadly flat
Snow Patrol established itself as a major player in the alternative rock world after the commercial successes of “Final Straw” and, particularly, “Eyes Open”, but those albums were hardly perfect; the instrumental lines relied heavily on hit-and-miss melodies, and plenty of Lightbody’s lyrics ranged from bluntly obvious to flat-out cringe-worthy. The stadium-sized, heart-tugging hits like “Run” and “Chasing Cars” showed off the group’s potential for traditional, mainstream romantic ballads, and there’s still some of that in “A Hundred Million Suns”. What’s different about “A Hundred Million Suns” is the new territory it explores. “A Hundred Million Suns” contains plenty of unique atmospheres, and it accomplishes something truly unexpected by presenting
Snow Patrol as a group with real ambition.
Unfortunately, the risks mostly don’t pay off. It’s a bit tragic, as “A Hundred Million Suns” feels all the way through like it’s about to take flight. It does, sure, but far too late in the game. One gets the sense listening through the album that the Irish quintet is straining its talent to the limit, a limit which, unfortunately, isn’t very far. It’s a respectable failure.
“A Hundred Million Suns” opens with the line “Three weeks later like a surplus reprieve, I found a hair the length of yours on my sleeve.” Need I say more? The song, “If There’s a Rocket, Tie Me To It”, never really recovers from such an obvious clunker. It’s a disjointed mess, from the annoying opening distortions to the big, loud second half, which fails ever develop a catchy rhythm. Or course, it doesn’t help that the whole song is built around an image of a throbbing, purple finger.
“Crack the Shutters” is better, warmer, and more fun, but much too mundane. It’s an enjoyable listen, but
Snow Patrol has done better, before, often. “Take Back the City”, follows. It’s an ode to Belfast, describing it cleverly as “an imperfect work of art”. The song opens with an aggressive acoustic line and a fierce performance by Lightbody as he pronounces “I love this place enough to have no doubt”. A chorus joins in and the pace never lets up, and the result is a
Snow Patrol classic.
The aforementioned “unique atmospheres” take up the rest of the album, with little success. I’ve never much liked the group’s slower songs, and the slower songs on this album are no exception. The middle of “A Hundred Million Suns” quickly loses the momentum established at the beginning with a series of slow to midtempo pieces. Of tracks 4-10, only “Please Take These Photos From My Hand” carries a quick pace. It’s also one of the best on the album, with exciting guitar riffs and a fun vocal performance.
“Lifeboats” establishes a beat that refuses to budge and “The Golden Floor”, a dreamlike song that is perhaps the most original-sounding work on the album, makes the same mistake, ending right where it began. Lines like “I’m not afraid of anything, even time” do nothing more than establish the tone, and the entire song feels meaningless. “Set Down Your Glass” consists of little more than an underdeveloped acoustic line and a gentle rendition of forgettable phrases like “And I'm shaking and I'm still when your eyes meet mine/I lose simple skills, like to tell you all I want is now.”
“The Planets Bend Between Us” is a love ballad as subtle as its title suggests. There are plenty of typical laugh inducing moments, from “Your freezing speech bubbles/Seem to hold your words aloft” to an image of the narrator shouting “from the edge of Ireland” “so they could hear it in America”, but the song also exhibits the most painful album trend. On “Final Straw” I found the lyrics to be petty and shallow and on “Eyes Open” to be decent but often annoyingly clichéd. Outside of “Crack the Shutters”, the strategy on “A Hundred Million Suns” is to embellish the same clichés by throwing in gigantic, cosmic terminology. “I have no fear because you are all that I have” from “Eyes Open” is now “The planets bend between us, a hundred million suns and stars” or “The sea between us only amplifies the sound waves/Every hum and echo and crash paints my cave”. Basically,
Snow Patrol has supersized its own lyrics in a way that’s just as bland and a lot more silly.
Fortunately, the final act is there to redeem the album. Some of the lyrics are still botched, from “Use me as rocket fuel” on “Engines” to “The perfect halo of gold hair and lightning sets you off against the planet’s last dance” in “The Lightning Strike”. And did we really need “Cool your beans my son” in the otherwise excellent “Disaster Button”? In that song Lightbody finally lets a whirlwind of hard-rock take over, and he throws out the f-bomb to great effect. “Engines” still shines, too, making great use of backup vocals and containing several distinct, repeated movements. It’s an awesome song; just listen to the way Lightbody pronounces “glance”. “The Lightning Strike”, though hardly perfect, is beautifully played. The sixteen minute piece consists of three movements connected by a prominent piano part and several long transitions. The inspirational third part is a standout.
“A Hundred Million Suns” is ridden with problems, but sales were high, so at least
Snow Patrol is going to get another chance. I just hope
Snow Patrol learns to come up with better lyrics. Although I can’t recommend “A Hundred Million Suns”, it isn’t a complete loss, and the group does emerge with a few great songs. Who knows – maybe someday Lightbody’s “freezing speech bubbles” really will resound from Ireland to America and beyond.
