Over fifteen years and five studio albums, the part Scottish, part Irish five piece has sketched heart-bruised ballads (Set Down Your Glass) and arm-around-your-best-mate festival anthems (Run); radio hits (Chasing Cars) and moments of painful introspection (You Could Be Happy). All of these have been gathered together for ‘Up To Now’ - a thirty track, double album of singles, cover versions, rarities, album tracks and a handful of new songs as well as compositions by the Reindeer Section – an indie supergroup featuring members of Scotland’s guitar elite - Belle and Sebastian, Idlewild and Teenage Fanclub among many others – and co-ordinated by Lightbody. “It’s a portrait of us as a band, warts and all” says Lightbody. “We’ve climbed a hill and now we’re looking back and taking in the view for a bit. It’s nice to show people that we didn’t just arrive overnight.”

‘Up To Now’ will be available on a two disc CD featuring thirty tracks, and a three disc digipack with an additional DVD which offers two exclusive documentaries, The Lightning Strike animated film and previously unseen live footage. A limited edition heavyweight box will also be made available on a strictly limited run. Each box will be numbered and wrapped in cloth and the first 100 boxes sold will be signed by all band members. The box is a veritable treasure trove for fans, containing the two disc CD, three heavyweight LPs, two DVDs, a lithograph print by Bradley Quinn and an LP-sized booklet. The box is available to pre-order at www.snowpatrol.com.

‘Just Say Yes’, one of three new tracks on the album, will be released as a single this Friday.

Following the album release, the band embark on ‘Snow Patrol Reworked’, a live celebration of highlights from the Snow Patrol songbook, specially reworked and reinvented. The shows will see Snow Patrol joined by other musicians and surprise guests and will feature, amongst other things, a four-piece string quartet, brass section, harpist, additional percussion, lap steel guitar and a choir. Each ticket to the Reworked tour comes with a free download of the incredible ‘Lightning Strike’, the epic trilogy that closed ‘A Hundred Million Suns’.

Snow Patrol Irish Tour commences December 2nd;

Dublin - Olympia Theatre - December 2nd and 3rd

Killarney - INEC - December 4th

Castlebar - Royal Theatre and Event Centre - December 6th

Belfast - Waterfront Hall Auditorium - December 7th, 8th and 9th

www.snowpatrol.com

The Hot Press Newsdesk