Consider this week's column as more of a late excuse note. I have been sitting on the new Snow Patrol release for weeks and haven't said a peep about it. I know faithful readers of the column turn to this page to get the latest Irish rock happenings the very minute they happen, and for that, I apologize on my tardiness.

My excuse is simple - I am sick of Snow Patrol! "Eyes Open," released in 2006, which featured the single "Chasing Cars," recently received its 100,000th U.K. radio play and two millionth download in the U.S. My guess is that it was also played on the radio time each time someone downloaded it. It used to be cool to like Snow Patrol. They were underground without being too trendy, perfect for folks too old for Fall Out Boy and too hip for the Rod Stewart big band stuff. Now, every mall and lite rock station played "Chasing Cars" until you wanted to throw yourself in front of one. Not that any of this slowed the band down. In its first week of release, A Hundred Million Suns landed in the top 10 in the U.S., number two in the U.K., and continues to sit at Number One in their beloved Ireland. Awed, singer Gary Lightbody offered his thanks on the web site, "We care little about chart positions, but I have to admit feeling very proud. It is a great privilege to do what we do and be rewarded for it by the love and success we've had around the world over the last few years. This album means everything to us, and we are delighted you have taken to it." So, what do I think of the album? Not much. The band is five albums into the game, and they have clearly settled into a sound - soft acoustic strumming, a pleading whisper vocal to get things rolling, followed by the climactic crash of guitar and drums. There is also a feeling on A Hundred Million Suns that if the band wasn't copying their own sound, they were copying someone else. They've reunited with producer Jacknife Lee, who also produced the last U2 disc. The same studio trickery he used to make U2's "City of Blinding Lights" so special is used in the song "If There's a Rocket, Tie Me to It." Ballads like "Lifeboats" and "Planets Between Us" are waterlogged ditties that are destined for inclusion as filler in some lame movie adaptation of a Cecelia Ahern chick-lit novel. There is some great songwriting on A Hundred Million Suns, and the formulaic slow start/climax at the end model is still effective in spots when an injection of melodrama is needed. "Crack the Shutters" is such a brilliant tune that you almost forgive the band for re-writing "Chasing Cars" all over again. It's about waking up to next to the one you love. "Crack the shutters/I want to bathe you in the light of day/and just watch you as the rays tangle in your face and body/'cos the daylight wants you just as much as I want you," Lightbody pleads, a precise swell of crashing guitars behind him. "The Lightning Strike" clocks in at 16:18, and it is the band's attempt to make a classic epic in the style of the Beatles' "Day in the Life." There is some interesting orchestration interspersed with gentle electronica in the background, but the song as a whole sounds overblown and indulgent. Nice try, guys, but you could have cut the journey off at eight minutes and still had the same effect. "Take Back the City" succeeds where most of the album falls short - it doesn't sound like anything the band has done before. It starts loud and finishes louder, with instruments gradually built in as Lightbody loves the "city of the night that bears its teeth." "Disaster Button" is another track that drives relentlessly, and both songs sound great when you are driving at 80 mph on the Garden State Parkway. Um, er, not that I know anything about that, mind you. There are some bright spots in A Hundred Million Suns, but as a long time fan of the band I was hoping for this album to be brighter than it was. Snow Patrol leapt onto the charts in 2006 by taking advantage of a period where there was no new U2 album on the horizon and Coldplay's disc bombed. U2 and Coldplay are among the most successful viable bands on the planet right now, and it's clear Snow Patrol references both groups in their melodies, innovative production and flair for epic drama. Well, Coldplay rocks again in 2008 and U2 will be breathing on their necks in the next few months, so its' time that Lightbody and the lads mix it up a little if they are going to have a horse with long legs in this race.