Snow Patrol have never really taken the easy route. Now comprising the trio of Gary Lightbody, Johnny McDaid and Nathan Connolly, the band have emerged from the process of writing and recording their extraordinary new album, The Forest is the Path, perhaps a little battered, but maybe, just maybe, a little wiser and certainly more humble from the experience.

This is an album of contrasts and maybe even contradictions. At times epically joyous, life-affirming and giant – in fact Lightbody calls the album “the biggest sounding record we have ever made” – and the first four tracks are some of the mightiest choruses they have released in their now thirty year career. But it also holds space for moments that are pin-drop quiet and earth-shatteringly devastating, none more so than the time-stopping These Lies. Lightbody even has the temerity to start the whole album by contradicting himself, offering “This is not a love song” in the very first line of All, only to nix that thought in the second verse with “I guess this is a love song after all.”

Catch Snow Patrol at the Paramount Theatre March 29th!