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Snow Patrol - A Hundred Million Suns
| Popmatters |
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It’s a cruel fate (though not necessarily a rare one) for any band to have to watch as one of their weakest songs becomes their biggest hit. This is hardly the fault of the artist. The narcissistic demands of mainstream commercial radio precondition a sort of drugged mimesis in its potential champions, a self-justifying paradigm entirely disconnected from the dominant streams of aesthetic appreciation. The loose criteria that determines “hit” status is amorphous, mercurial and unstable, misapprehending origins and confusing means for ends. For this reason, the knee-jerk distaste directed at an otherwise alternative-friendly act when a song of theirs is beamed out from corporate-branch radio stations across the known world is entirely misguided. Even if there is irrefutable evidence of blatant pandering to commercial convention, how is anyone to predict whether or not that convention will still be convention come the release date? Even if all the pieces fit together, mass success may not be assured. And sometimes, all the pieces fall into place in a way even the band may not expect or even intend....full text |
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| Ew |
| How does one follow up a platinum smash (2006's Eyes Open) and an inescapable single (''Chasing Cars'')? The Irish quintet Snow Patrol has summoned a safe solution: Give the people what they want. A Hundred Million Suns is rife with the kind of midtempo rock ballads that dreamy rom-com climaxes are made of. The first single, ''Take Back the City,'' is decidedly more raucous, but the bulk of the album belongs to shivery numbers like ''If There's a Rocket Tie Me to It,'' ''Lifeboats,'' and ''The Golden Floor'' — heart-swellers, all....full text |
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| Billboard |
| Snow Patrol handily manages the challenge of following up breakthrough album "Eyes Open" on "A Hundred Million Suns." The music's inherent dignity ensures that lyrics like "Kiss me, kiss me/Life is way too short to scream and shout" don't draw smirks, and it keeps the brazen romanticism and sentimentality from becoming too glaring. "If There's a Rocket Tie Me to It" nods to Coldplay, preserving the driving urgency of previous hit "Chasing Cars." "Take Back the City" and "Engines" also hijack the beat, but midtempo winners "Lifeboats" and "The Golden Floor" are much better realized. Three-act, 16-minute finale "The Lightening Strike" recounts being forced to take shelter with a beloved in a storm and the revered memory of those transcendent moments. "I don't want to run/Just overwhelm me," Gary Lightbody sings—an ample description for the album's overall intentions. —Christa L. Titus...full text |
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