Snow Patrol, “Wildness” (Polydor/Republic)My goodness, has it really been seven years since the last Snow Patrol album? The result is a fantastically ambitious collection of songs, one more direct and intimate than many previous Snow Patrol offerings. It’s so intimate and needy that you’ll want to wrap it in a blanket and put it beside a fire. Snow Patrol gets positively slinky for “A Dark Switch” and on the heartbreaking “Soon,” Lightbody comforts his ailing dad. “The secret storms of your wild youth/ Now just gentle breezes warm and faint.”While not every song rises to these high levels — and the closing “Life and Death” underwhelms, especially with such an enterprising title — “Wildness” signals a triumphant Snow Patrol return.

Source: National Post May 23, 2018 16:30 UTC