Snow Patrol Share Chocolate Demo From Final Straw 20th Anniversary Reissue

03-10-2023

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(UMe) Snow Patrol has announced details of a 20th Anniversary edition of their classic record Final Straw, with a previously unreleased demo version of their anthemic hit "Chocolate" out now.

The album will be released digitally via UMe on March 31, with a special double vinyl edition following on August 4 to mark the record's original release date 20 years on. The anniversary edition includes 23 additional tracks*, including never-before-heard demos, B-sides, live tracks from the band's August 2004 show at London's Somerset House, and a previously commercially unreleased track, "Tired."

"I still have days where I don't believe much of the last 20 years," writes Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody in extensive liner notes accompanying the release. "In the back of my mind, I'm still waiting for the tap on the shoulder and someone saying, 'you're not supposed to be here.' In a lot of ways, it's a gift we were given. We've never taken any of what happened after the release of this album for granted." Alongside Gary's recollections, the package also includes writings on Final Straw from Jo Whiley and Fiction Records MD Jim Chancellor.

Final Straw was Snow Patrol's third album and their major label debut. Written and recorded during a make-or-break period for the quartet, it set them on the path to becoming one of the biggest British guitar groups of the 21st century. Their 2006 single "Chasing Cars," taken from Final Straw's follow-up "Eyes Open," is one of the biggest songs of all time, a five-times platinum hit with streams of one billion on Spotify and three million combined sales.

Final Straw, though, is where everything began to fall in place for Snow Patrol. Propelled by the stirring ballad "Run," which has over 127,000,000 Spotify plays, and urgent, hooky singalongs such as "Chocolate" and "Spitting Games," Final Straw went on to sell over four million copies worldwide, inclusive of 1.8 million sales in the UK going six-times platinum in the process. Nothing would ever be the same for Snow Patrol after its release. Here's to revisiting the record that changed everything.

Tracklisting:
How To Be Dead
Wow
Gleaming Auction
Whatever's Left
Spitting Games
Chocolate
Run
Grazed Knees
Ways & Means
Tiny Little Fractures
Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking
Same
Steal (Spitting Games B-Side)
Stronger Than Before (Demo)
By Heart (Demo)
We Can Run Away Now They're All Dead And Gone
Tired *Previously commercially unreleased
Post Punk Progression (Run B-Side)
Chocolate (Demo) *Previously unreleased
Run (Demo) *Previously unreleased
Gleaming Auction (Demo) *Previously unreleased
Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking (Demo) *Previously unreleased
Grazed Knees (Demo) *Previously unreleased
Spitting Games (Demo) *Previously unreleased
Wow (Live at Somerset House)
Gleaming Auction (Live at Somerset House)
Spitting Games (Live at Somerset House)
How To Be Dead (Live at Somerset House)
Chocolate (Live at Somerset House)
Same (Live at Somerset House)
Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking (Live at Somerset House)
Ways & Means (Live at Somerset House)
Run (Live at Somerset House)
Post Punk Progression (Live at Somerset House)
Tiny Little Fractures (Live at Somerset House)

*Digital edition only. 2LP Vinyl doesn't include Live at Somerset House.