My Amazon Reviews: Snow Patrol "Up To Now"

Snow Job 
4 Out of 5 Stars

Seeing how Philadelphia received a record amount of snow this winter, it seems fitting that reviewing this 30 song compilation by Ireland's Snow Patrol should be posted. Not just for the historical amount of white stuff dumped on my neighborhood, but for the cool music this double disc set contains. There's some deep talent to be found here. And I, for one, did not realize that Snow Patrol was almost a 15 year old group.

Those in the USA who came to Snow Patrol via their worldwide breakthrough "Chasing Cars" will be surprised by the artier songs that date prior to 2000. The band very quickly evolved into a slick alternative outfit and by 2003, the UK hits started coming off of Final Straw.The first song on "Up To Now" is the melancholy "Chocolate," which found lead Patrolman Gary Lightbody going for the lush world of Coldplay. He also started writing stronger ballads, as "Run" will attest.

After that, Lightbody started swinging for the bleachers. The sound got noticeably bigger on Eyes Open, with both "Shut Your Eyes" and "Chasing Cars" making Snow Patrol now sounding more like band than the sum of their influences. There's also much more atmosphere than before, allowing the epic guitars to chime. When 2008's A Hundred Million Suns appeared, the band began hitting the kind of heights U2 often does, like "Take Back This City," Snow Patrol's hardest rocking single to date. However, frontman doesn't have the mammoth ego of Bono, nor Chris Martin's sometimes exasperating over-eagerness.

That's even more obvious on one of "Up To Now's" new tracks; a cover of Beyonce's "Crazy In Love." Keyboardist Tom Simpson is apparently a pretty cool DJ (who knew?). The other is a brilliantly produced "Give Me Strength," which plays right into the band's considerable...err...strengths. It's a slow building anthem that rises to a chorus of rejuvenation. Snow Patrol is a band that wants the stardom, but isn't afraid of getting heroes like Martha Wainwright to sing on "Set The Fire to The Third Bar" or name dropping Sufjan Stevens in "Hands Open." "Up To Now" is the portrait of a modest band that is now making terrific music.