3 stars
Ever make a mixtape you were real proud of? Did you try to play it for all your friends and they didn’t seem to “get it” like you got it?
That’s essentially what this album is.
Late Night Tales is a series of compilations in which each volume is assembled by a group or artist and includes songs that inspired them to make music. The artists are also asked to include one original cover of another song.
OK, cool. Let’s delve a little into the psyche Snow Patrol, right?
Not quite. While Snow Patrol’s Tales is a great selection of tracks that range from Bobbie Gentry and Captain Beefheart to A Tribe Called Quest and DJ Food, the partiality to each song is obviously missing when removed from the artist and attached to the listener.
The group does do a solid rendition of “New Sensation” as their cover, replacing the sax solo and generic ’80s guitar riffs for acoustic guitar and gentle harmonies, in turn making it as much theirs as INXS’, but the whole album is missing a sense of personality.
If you’re a fan of Snow Patrol, being able to listen to the group’s influences during a fluid hour of good jams is really cool. If you’re not particularly a fan, it’s like listening to your roommate’s soundtrack to their high school years, if your roommate was famous.
