Snow Patrol - New York

If anything, Snow Patrol's pertaining success story has to be celebrated. Where so many of their formative era have dropped off into that ghastly musical limbo of the unknown, Snow Patrol - while perhaps not always casting themselves as the Hollywood-scale rock maestros they were when they were soundtracking the likes of Spiderman - have settled themselves into a very attractive corner of the market. But their most recent studio effort - Fallen Empires - felt like more than that; it felt like a band still eager to prove themselves in so many ways. It was a band with a resonance and ability that was very much still burning in its prime - and New York, for all that it eschews the more radio-friendly mould we know Snow Patrol can do so well, is properly impressive.

New York sees Snow Patrol at their most moody and introspective and takes an almost tortuously long time to get going - but when it does, oh my is it worth the wait. Touching on the bands roots, it ranges from minimal acoustic strokes, beautifully poetic lyrics, to rousing stadium-splitting blasts of horn. It's an anthem of achievement, an affirmation of life, a calling on everything that Snow Patrol's existence has always been building towards. And just like the album itself, New York states plainly, 'We're Snow Patrol, we're still here, and we're still relevant.'

New York is released on the 30th April.