Winter is coming, and so is Snow Patrol with their much-anticipated return. The Northern Irish band has announced the release of their first new studio album in six years, titled The Forest Is the Path. Scheduled for release on September 13 via Polydor Records, this 12-track collection was produced by Fraser T Smith (Adele, Stormzy) alongside the band itself and features contributions from the band’s core trio: guitarist and singer Gary Lightbody, guitarist Johnny McDaid, and guitarist/vocalist Nathan Connolly.
The new album follows 2018’s Wildness and promises to deliver the band’s signature melodic and dramatic sound. The lead single, “The Beginning,” is out now, offering fans a glimpse of what’s to come. In the track, Lightbody croons evocatively, “There is only you and me in this life/ And I don’t want to f–k it up now/ There is nothing for me in these past lives/ There is only what I wasn’t yet,” encapsulating the song’s reflective and introspective themes.
“We had a few wee ideas kicking about that would eventually be recorded and find their way onto the album,” the band shared on Instagram. “But when Johnny and I found ourselves in the Somerset countryside about to start writing for this album in earnest, ‘The Beginning’ was written on the very first day. That’s why it’s called ‘The Beginning.’”
The album’s songwriting features contributions from Smith, Will Reynolds, Roy Kerr, and Queens of the Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen. Lightbody also provided the luminous artwork for both the album and the single.
In their announcement, the band emphasized the significance of this release: “This album took us on many uncharted routes, with sometimes weird and sometimes wonderful turns, and so it’s hard not to think of the start of this album as a new beginning. We honor the past deeply. This is our thirtieth year, so we have an awful lot of it, past I mean. Tons of it. But while we honor the past, we also want to cherish the present and look to the future.”
Lightbody further elaborated that the album’s themes revolve around “reflection, introspection, and interrogation,” particularly focusing on love viewed from the perspective of time passed. “I haven’t been in a relationship for a very long time, 10 years or more, so love from a distance to me meant the way a relationship sits in your memory from a distance of, say, 10 years,” he explained. The single “The Beginning” encapsulates this perspective, presenting a reflective look at past relationships and the emotions they evoke.
Snow Patrol’s The Forest Is the Path promises to be a poignant addition to their discography, capturing the essence of the band’s journey while looking ahead to new beginnings. Fans eagerly await its release, ready to embark on this new musical adventure with the band.
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Photo Credit: Ben Houdijk / Shutterstock.com