Snow Patrol – Late Night Tales

Stadium stalwarts Snow Patrol are the latest artist to add the most favourable aspects of their record collection to the burgeoning Late Night Tales series. Attempting to bring about a lulling calm with their selection of ‘choons’, Gary Lightbody and Tom Simpson take to the wheels of steel to produce a selection of relaxed electronic and acoustic meanderings that may be the perfect remedy to a hard day’s night should any fans of the band return home to find their extensive collection of Snow Patrol albums inappropriate for that precise moment. With the duo appearing to have little experience in either turntable proficiency or DJing in general, the listener should expect to find a somewhat crudely assembled and moribund mix.Though successfully beat-matching Captain Beefheart (’Observatory Crest), A Tribe Called Quest (’Midnight’), DJ Food (’Dark Lady’) and King Biscuit Time (’I Walk The Earth), none of these individual moods are matched, which makes for a disparate listen. Unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse as tracks are merely started up as the previous track ends, making this sound like it could have been put together by an eleven-year-old armed with a tape deck who’s been granted access to his father’s record collection. In fairness, that’s probably offensive to many eleven-year-olds: they probably know their way around a digital sequencer better than any member of Snow Patrol and have never seen a tape deck.It’s not that the mix is a complete failure: the transition between Arthur Russell ('That’s us / Wild Compilation') and Jim Noir ('Eanie Meany') is well judged and yet, for a band that survive on their sense of melody and harmony, segueing into the jarring discord of School of Seven Bells ('Half Asleep') is bewildering to say the least.Snow Patrol’s Late Night Tales threatens pace in its final third with a contribution from Holy Ghost! ('Hold O'n) before the duo decide to follow it with Super Furry Animals’ ambient 'Download'. Lacking any sense of adventure whatsoever, this seems to be the only way to include their exclusive acoustic rendition of INXS’ 'New Sensation'.An ignominious addition to the series, Snow Patrol should stick to what they do best and continue to charm the pants off Live Nation whilst leaving the art of DJing well alone, because there’s little demonstrable knowledge of it to be found here.