Snow Patrol have announced their new album The Forest Is The Path, set for release on September 13, as well as their accompanying UK and Europe tour, which will take them to Dublin’s 3Arena on February 25 before wrapping up in Belfasts’s SSE Arena on February 27.

The Northern Irish band have also released the lead single for the upcoming album, ‘The Beginning’. According to pianist Johnny McDaid, singer Gary Lightbody recorded the track’s vocals in one take “straight after writing the lyrics.

"It has this mind-collapsing quality to it, where you feel like you’re seeing into someone’s soul,” he said.

Listen to ‘The Beginning’ below:

Snow Patrol’s first release in six years, The Forest Is The Path deals with the themes of reflection, introspection and interrogation. It features twelve tracks and was written by Lightbody, McDain and Nathan Connolly, with collaborations from Fraser T Smith, Will Reynolds, Roy Kerr and Troy Van Leeuwen on some of the tracks.

Lightbody describes one of the central themes of the record as the idea of love from the distance of time: “I haven’t been in a relationship for a very long time,” he explains, “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 a way 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.”

Tickets Snow Patrol's Irish gigs will go on sale on Friday June 7 at 10am here. For more tour information, click here.

The Forest Is The Path is set for release on September 13. You can pre-order the album here.

Find the full tracklist below:

1. All
2. The Beginning
3. Everything’s Here And Nothing’s Lost
4. Your Heart Home
5. This Is The Sound Of Your Voice
6. Hold Me In The Fire
7. Years That Fall
8. Never Really Tire
9. These Lies
10. What If Nothing Breaks?
11. Talking About Hope
12. The Forest Is The Path