On Stage
TBC
Snow Patrol have never really taken the easy route. Now comprising the trio of Gary Lightbody,
Johnny McDaid and Nathan Connolly, the band have emerged from the process of writing and
recording their extraordinary new album, The Forest is the Path, perhaps a little battered, but maybe, just maybe, a little wiser and certainly more humble from the experience.
Fans of the band will all have favourite albums that they return to again and again. What could
possibly hold a candle to Final Straw, to Eyes Open? To A Hundred Million Suns, Fallen Empires?
To Wildness? Yes, a trillion times, to all of those. But wait, wait, until you listen to The Forest is the
Path.
This is an album of contrasts and maybe even contradictions. At times epically joyous, life-affirming and giant – in fact Lightbody calls the album “the biggest sounding record we have ever made” – and the first four tracks are some of the mightiest choruses they have released in their now thirty year career. But it also holds space for moments that are pin-drop quiet and earth-shatteringly devastating, none more so than the time-stopping These Lies. Lightbody even has the temerity to start the whole album by contradicting himself, offering “This is not a love song” in the very first line of All, only to nix that thought in the second verse with “I guess this is a love song after all”.
Lyrically, it’s by far the most laid-bare and most unsparing of the band’s albums (which is saying
something). Phrases leap out and ambush you, constantly. “I’m only lost if you don’t look for me.”
“I’m not going to lie to you anymore, after these lies. Then no more.” “I want to be in love without
being loved in return.” “I’ve told myself a million times who you weren’t, so I can finally forget who
you were.” “Love is just pain in reverse.” It’s not a record for the faint-hearted, to be sure – but it may just be a salve for the heart that hurts.