Snow Patrol have announced their eagerly awaited return with a brand new album, titled The Forest Is The Path. The album is the Northern Irish band’s first in six years, following 2018’s Wildness, and is set for release on September 13 via Polydor Records.
The album was produced by Fraser T Smith (Adele/Dave/Stormzy) and the band, which now comprises the trio of Gary Lightbody, Nathan Connolly, and Johnny McDaid.
To celebrate the news, Snow Patrol have offered the first taste of their new album with first single “The Beginning,” as well as announcing details of a UK and Ireland Arena tour in 2025.
The Forest Is The Path was written by Gary Lightbody, Nathan Connolly and Johnny McDaid and features twelve tracks. Fraser T Smith, Will Reynolds, Roy Kerr, and Troy Van Leeuwen (QOTSA) also contributed to the writing on some of the songs on the album. The album and single artwork features paintings by Gary Lightbody.
“The Beginning” is the cornerstone of the band’s eighth studio album, written on a trip to Somerset. Lightbody reflected on the single, saying: “The first day we wrote ‘The Beginning’ start to finish.” McDaid added: “And he did the vocal in one take. Straight after writing the lyrics. So it has this mind-collapsing quality to it where you feel like you’re seeing into someone’s soul.”
The Forest is the Path is an album rooted in reflection, introspection and interrogation. One of its key building blocks, says Lightbody, was the idea of love from the distance of time. “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.
“That’s not something I’d previously thought about as away to write about love. So it’s like, when you’re in love, you’re standing in the lobby of the Empire State Building. When you’ve broken up with that person, you’re out in the street. You can still see the building, but you’re not in there anymore. And when it’s 10 years later, now you’re standing in Brooklyn looking at the Manhattan skyline.”
Pre-order The Forest Is The Path.