Snow Patrol- Final Straw

Snow Patrol
Final Straw
Label: A&M
Produced By: Garrett Lee
Release Date: March 30, 2004
Listen to a few songs here
And more samples here
Buy it here

Boy:

I don’t really know what “British pedal rock” is, but if Snow Patrol is a shining example then count me as a fan of the genre. These fellas have been making it happen across the pond since ’98 but I have only recently been made aware via their album “Final Straw”. I like this very much, not because it’s extraordinary, but because there isn’t anything not to like. Gary Lightbody’s voice is so easy to listen to over the just-grungier-than-brit-pop guitar rifs that it has an almost Tom Petty like infectiousness on tunes like “Chocolate” and “Run” – my two favorites. They round out the album with more resonant and melancholy pieces like “Same” and “Grazed Knees” that show strength in lyric and measure. This is good music that speaks for itself in every bar of every song. Cracking. I dig it.

Girl:

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this album after my initial introduction. “How To Be Dead” leads off Snow Patrol’s Final Straw, which plays like lyrical journal entry written by an angst ridden twenty something. Although this sort of theme is carried out through most of the lyrics of the album, it is driven by spongy vocals that soak up wistful harmonies that leave me tapping repeat time and again. I found myself getting lost in the surprising crossing of influences and just enjoying finding the nuances in Snow Patrol’s combined strong vocals and sturdy guitar riffs. All in all it was a beyond pleasant ride that left me feeling satisfied and ready for another course of Final Straw. The lyric, “All these places feel like home”, falls right into place with how I felt about each track. Way to totally not suck Snow Patrol!

What others are saying: "now Patrol has brushed off the softness of their Belle & Sebastian-style past for Final Straw, their major label debut. It’s survival of the fittest, or survival of the hardest, or maybe it’s just creative evolution. Either way, it’s a record that’s hard to resist." - Slant Magazine

If you are only going buy one song it should be:
Run
iTunes

Trail of Dead-Worlds Apart

Trail of Dead
Worlds Apart
Label: Interscope Records
Produced By: Michael McCarthy
Release Date (US): January 25, 2005
Listen here
And here
Buy it.

Boy:

It’s been a long time since I actually heard something that I could really consider original. …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead offers up track after track of poetic surrealism influenced by a herd of diverse artists – even the jewel case has a rendering of Beethoven and an all-together baroque feel. Don’t get me wrong, these guys rock. I have never seen such a magical live show as when I caught them at the Roxie for their new album release. Throughout the show the lead singer will take over guitar while the drummer comes up to the microphone as the guitarist takes his turn at the drums. It’s a trip because their identity is maintained whilst the feeling of the music shifts somewhere else. Masterful. Not to mention the random on-stage destruction of instrument after instrument. Production on this album is terrific - the music shifts seamlessly from track to track with creative and odd, though never un-appropriate, sound effect sequences. Lyrically you could not ask for more, …Trail Of Dead is at once poetic and explicit. “Let It Dive” is my favorite tune on the album followed by “Will You Smile Again”, but recommending one song on this album is like showing you just a corner of an Van Gogh and expecting you to appreciate it. Give it a shot.

cat·er·waul ()
intr.v. cat·er·wauled, cat·er·waul·ing, cat·er·wauls

1. To cry or screech like a cat in heat.
2. To make a shrill, discordant sound.
3. To have a noisy argument.
   
   

n. A shrill, discordant sound.

Girl:

I first heard about Trail this past winter when our friend Bryan invited us to their show at the Roxy. I anticipated a decent show, as Bryan had never let us down before but what I hadn’t anticipated was a completely rock experience. You know it was a good show when the set ends early because the band has run out of instruments to smash and the roadies are in the audience gathering cymbals in a last attempt to put a drum set back together. That, my friend, was a great introduction to the band. But as you will find on this album is the beauty behind the debauchery. With strings and horns backing and at times driving a solid melody, you can’t help but get lost in track after track of lyrical cotton candy* and heavy harmonies. The thing I love about this album is that it can’t really be smushed into a genre box. You can hear influences of Britpop and early nineties grunge bands but it all comes back around to their own sound, a sound that I will have around in my collection for years to come and hopefully you will too.

*Dude, I love cotton candy. I do not mean that the lyrics are fluffy but instead that I devoured them with earnest anticipation.

What others are saying: "It is very nearly a perfect album. It will kick your ass, and then it will make you cry. It will make you pull over while driving to listen to it more closely... The melody and songwriting are both here, all wrapped up in a tight ball of carnage and fury." - Filter Magazine

If you are only going buy one song it should be:
Worlds Apart
iTunes