Snow Patrol: Eyes Open : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

These Irish rockers became stars in the U.K. with 2004's Final Straw, an album long on Coldplay-style melancholia and delicate atmospherics. Eyes Open is even more decadently cushy, setting chiming guitars, strings and electronics under Gary Lightbody's aching croons. Starry-eyed ballads like "You're All That I Have" are dragged down by Lightbody's Hallmark sentiments, and the cinematic production feels overbearing on songs such as "Make This Go On Forever," a desperate hymn outfitted with a choral accompaniment. Lightbody is better on "Hands Open," a sharp, catchy rocker that could have come from late-Eighties R.E.M., and "It's Beginning to Get to Me" features a heart-tugging tune that sounds fully formed rather than hazy and shapeless. Eyes Open may make Snow Patrol something like famous over here, but stronger songs could have elevated it past mere prettiness.