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Eyes Open is composed of broad, obvious songs with broad, obvious hooks, aimed straight for the hearts of as many people as the band can manage. All of this would be bad, horrible even, if it didn't work. But it does.
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Eyes Open dives headfirst into mainstream waters, hoping the strength of its intentions will be visible through the glossy bombast. It is, but it takes some surface-scratching to reach it.
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Snow Patrol are poised to eclipse Coldplay as pop's greatest anthem-makers.
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Q MagazineSnow Patrol are on their way to becoming essential. [May 2006, p.120]
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Snow Patrol's hungry rock sound only gets bigger and better this time around.
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Los Angeles TimesWith thickly distorted, deeply rumbling guitars blazing, the U.K. band comes roaring out of the gate on its fourth album, intent to hammer home the point there's more to it than the Coldplay-like romanticism of its 2004 breakthrough single, "Run." [16 May 2006]
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The band's naked ambition would be offputting if it didn't come wrapped in such resounding choruses.
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As enjoyable as anything this calculated can be.
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If there is one tiny flaw on this disc, it's the way some of the songs, after teasing us with intensifying waves of sound, tend to drift to an ending prior to attaining their destination.
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Eyes Open shows you the elements of a successful record, without the heart that ultimately makes it a success.
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If Eyes Open lacks the vivacity of its breakthrough predecessor, it remains an assured example of a band still paying more than lip service to the notion of rock music as a vital pop form.
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To sum them up in one word, "reliable" would be the most appropriate.
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Eyes Open takes the formula of the last album and magnifies it.
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Gone completely is any passing trace of the grubby, US college rock that made them so beloved underground when the real world wasn't taking notice. In its place, is an awful lot of big, blustery ballads.
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Big, bold, cleverly-executed, thoroughly hollow stuff.
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BlenderOver 45 minutes, it feels monotonous and preposterously self-pitying, but in controlled doses, it bests all the rest of the U.K.'s current wave of post-Coldplay bedwetters. [Jun 2006, p.145]
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UncutSo much of Eyes Open is nearly, but not quite. [Jun 2006, p.114]
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Stronger songs could have elevated it past mere prettiness.
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MojoEyes Open hardly furthers Snow Patrol's rote one guitar attack, and repetition exposes Lightbody's interpretations of love's little hiccups as a tiring experience. [Jun 2006, p.108]
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Anything that was either subtle or complicated has been erased to provide ready-made heart-on-sleeve love songs.
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Snow Patrol suddenly sounds like a cross between Goo Goo Dolls and Train.
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Eyes Open is far from a horrible album. It’s easy to listen to, it’s melodic, and it’s well-read. But you’re a strong (or naïve) listener if you can get past the calculation, the number-crunching, the crassness with which Lightbody has taken aim at the MySpace demographic.
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Unfortunately, singer Gary Lightbody can't resist playing it safe. He slides comfortably back into the stadium-size ballads and mushy MOR formulas that scored on their million-seller, Final Straw.
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SpinOverreaches. [Jul 2006, p.88]
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Under The RadarSnow Patrol got it all wrong with this album. [Summer 2006, p.93]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 58 out of 75
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Mixed: 14 out of 75
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Negative: 3 out of 75
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Apr 30, 2015
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May 24, 2012
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[Anonymous]Oct 20, 2009