New studio album

Snow Patrol: It’s time for a recalibration

And then there were only three: Snow Patrol show themselves in loftier personal style on their comeback album.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Polydor, Tim Beard)

Six years after their last studio album, the Scottish pop-softies of Snow Patrol are returning to the limelight. Frontman Gary Lightbody has suffered a personnel bloodletting and first reflected on his life in order to fully arrive in the present. In the "Krone" talk, he speaks openly about "The Forest Is The Path", the subject of love and why Noel Gallagher is right.

The sore point is addressed even before the interview: Questions about Coldplay are frowned upon during the conversation with Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody. He is asked to refrain from asking them. The Scots have probably been compared to Chris Martin and co. too often in their now 30-year history. It is understandable on both sides. On the one hand, Snow Patrol have indeed often moved very closely in the slipstream of the overpowering Brits, on the other hand, the sensitive frontman has been questioned often and in detail enough over the years. There is now little danger of confusion, which has a paradoxical reason. The real Coldplay have become a mainstream hit machine over the last few years, while Snow Patrol, for all their development, don't stray too far from their own history and like to wallow in the foundation of their own being.

There is no alternative to carrying on
"The Forest Is The Path" is their first album in six years - an incredibly long time in the music business by today's standards. In between, there was a pandemic and the band was reduced from five to three core members. Drummer Jonny Quinn and bassist Paul Wilson left the band last fall - since then, the remaining members Lightbody and guitarists Nathan Connolly and Johnny McDaid have been working with live musicians. "The two of them will always be part of the 'Mount Rushmore of Snow Patrol'", Lightbody explains to us in the "Krone" interview, "of course we briefly considered whether we should continue. But we have to carry on, there's no alternative. Now the band feels like a reinvention - instinctive and not forced."

Lightbody, who hasn't been in a relationship for more than a decade, wanted to reconnect with real life. "I needed a bit of a break from modernity. I don't want to hang out on Instagram all day, I want to swim in the sea, breathe fresh air and walk aimlessly through the woods. I have felt very lost at times and am now looking for a way into nature. There are no wrong paths there because they all lead to the same destination. In a way, it's the same with music, but I first had to become aware of that again. For far too long, I was a young man looking for a certain direction instead of simply enjoying the journey itself."

Positive basic mood
The compositional immediacy of producing songs without templates and stencils leads to a certain lightness on "The Forest Is The Path". Although the cover artwork and basic theme cry out for an excess of melancholy, many of the songs are infused with a positive mood, up-tempo melodies and plenty of verve. It's almost as if the 48-year-old has completely recalibrated himself. "Life goes by so damn fast. If you don't take time in between to stop, look around and pause, then it rushes past you at high speed. I've spent far too much of my life being where I don't want to be. It's damn hard to live in the present because you're either mourning the past or looking too far ahead. The present is a fleeting bastard."

Snow Patrol will be celebrating their 30th anniversary in 2024 - is that perhaps why the new studio album is being released after such a long break? "Not really," laughs Lightbody, "and it would also be wrong to celebrate this anniversary, because then we'd be looking to the past again. It was never planned to coincide with this number. When you reflect on such a long career, it can be very tiring. But I feel rejuvenated, full of energy and drive. I sing the songs in the present, but I feel like I'm 30 or 35. A very important theme of the album is love in different facets. I would love to fall in love again and if that happens, it will be the way I felt when I was 30."

Love is understood
For Lightbody, "The Forest Is The Path" is also a form of identity change set to music. "I now know what love means. How to give love and how to accept it. The earlier version of me couldn't do any of that. Time is just as important for the album as love. That brings us back to the topic of social media - the way we waste time and love is just awful. I've managed to spend ten, maybe 15 minutes a day on social media platforms at the moment. Maybe one day I'll get off it completely." After three decades of music history, Snow Patrol's love of analog music reigns supreme, which will soon be unleashed in the form of live concerts. We still have to wait for an Austrian date, even if a comeback is very likely (the last performance was at Vienna's Gasometer in 2019). "I very much believe in Noel Gallagher's song line," Lightbody laughs at the end, "please don't put your life in the hands of a rock'n'roll band."