A star turn

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SNOW Patrol's 2003 album Final Straw has the honour of being the first album I ever reviewed as a pro.

Sure, I'd had a long history of boring my family, friends and anybody else that happened to be in earshot with my musical musings.

But as a greenhorn reporter at the Coalville Times who'd inherited the Mike Test music reviews section from departing reporter Mike Whelan, reviewing Snow Patrol was the first thing I did.

With hindsight, changing the name of Mike Test should have been the first thing I did, but actually the then editor confusingly kept it as Mike Test for a few weeks, then changed it Isaac Test, which makes no sense at all...

Anyway, then, as now, I was, and am, in awe of the slickness with which Snow Patrol went, and still go, about their business.

Latest offering A Hundred Million Suns is another welter of chart-troubling rockers and emotive ballads from the Dundee band.

Less immediately anthemic as their previous two offerings, A Hundred Million Suns is a slow-burner of epic proportions sure to put a little warmth your way.