It has been revealed that Snow Patrol's next album should be released some time in 2015. Snow Patrol mainman Gary Lightbody – who played Bushmills Live in Belfast last week with Tired Pony – has been holed up in the Californian desert writing songs for the new record. While the original target had been to get the album completed for 2014, as is currently also the case with U2, the feeling in the Snow Patrol camp is that it is better to let the material mature, rather than committing to recording it before the writing is complete.

“It can be the difference between making a good record and a great record,” one industry insider told Hot Press. “While the band are disappointed not to have a record ready to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their formation, it is much more important that they make a great Snow Patrol record.”

In terms of popular appeal, they have a lot to live up to. Their 2006 release ‘Chasing Cars’ is one of the biggest selling tracks of the modern era, shifting over a million copies and spending 11 weeks in the charts in the UK alone and moving over 3 million copies in the US. It was the most widely played song of the decade in the UK, according to the PPI, and was voted the No.1 Song of the Decade in a Channel 4 poll carried out at the end of 2009. The album from which it was taken, Eyes Open, went platinum in the US and was seven times platinum in both Ireland and the UK.

Check out the band's last single, 'New York', below.