Snow Patrol have announced that they will release a collaborative EP, titled The Fireside Sessions, on August 21, 2020.

The band also shared the first single from the EP: ‘Reaching Out To You’, a crunchy, soulful track that insists on the possibility of intimacy, even under lockdown.

Though The Fireside Sessions features performances from the five-piece’s core lineup, it’s not just a Snow Patrol EP — it also credits a group of fans called ‘the Saturday Songwriters’.

This is a reference to the ‘Saturday sessions’, a series of weekly Instagram livestreams during which Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody wrote songs with help from his fans.

“During lockdown I wrote a song each Saturday on Instagram Live,” Lightbody said. “People from all over the world participated and each week there were 4 or 5 thousand people involved over the course of the hour: The Saturday Songwriters.

“They would suggest chords and lyrics and I would put them all together and add in a few of my own where appropriate but my unwritten rule was that there would be lyrics from a Saturday Songwriter in each line of the song.”

On ‘Reaching Out To You’, this collaboration yielded red-hot lyrics full of vivid metaphors. Scattered throughout the track are cryptic, poetic phrases: “deranged horizons”, “the sound of all these fires” and “the silence can’t be hacked,” among others.

One of the song’s most memorable sequences comes in its epic second verse. “Know the last time that I saw you / Is not the last page of the book / Yeah maybe I can hear the thunder / But all I need is just one look,” Lightbody sings, as behind him keys and strings swell toward the track's high-drama chorus.

The Irish-Scottish rock band has topped the charts again and again due to their passionate songwriting, with ‘Chasing Cars’ becoming the most widely played song of the 21st century on UK radio.

But the mysterious symbolism of ‘Reaching Out To You’ seems to reflect its collaborative writing process — you can hear many individual experiences coming together into something larger and more strange, loaded with rich emotional resonance.

The Fireside Sessions will feature four more tracks written during Lightbody’s Saturday Sessions: ‘On The Edge Of All This’, ‘The Curve Of Earth’, ‘Dance With Me’ and ‘Light Years’.

Northern Irish musician Lain Archer produced the EP; its cover features artwork by Mel Eatherington, a fan whose submission won an Instagram contest the band hosted.

All proceeds from the EP will go to the Trussell Trust, which supports a nationwide network of food banks. On Instagram, Snow Patrol said that "we thought in the midst of COVID feeding people was the best possible way the money from the sales could be used."

Until the full EP comes out on August 21, you can stream ‘Reaching Out To You’ by Snow Patrol and the Saturday Songwriters on Spotify below.

https://open.spotify.com/track/3UpfG8XzDRo2u5rxhmmOYO?si=fRAp2XaOSZO8-FC3NEKZbQ