2018 is Irish music's year.

Beloved Irish music group Snow Patrol is returning from a seven-year hiatus from music to release their upcoming album Wildness later this year. The Irish and Scottish band last released a full-length record back in 2011 entitled Fallen Empires. It charted in the top five in both the UK and US. Set for release on 25 May, Wildness explores the band's searching for clarity, connection, and meaning, while staying true to the melodic songwriting prowess that brought them to prominence. Lead-singer and songwriter Gary Lightbody mentions that the new tracks tap into something raw and primitive, as the album's title would suggest. “There are many types of wildness, but I think it can be distilled into two: the wildness of the modern age, all it’s confusion, illogic and alienation and a more ancient wildness. "Something primal, alive and beautiful that speaks to our true connectivity, our passion, our love, our communion with nature and each other. This is the kind of wildness the album is centered around. The loss of it. Trying to reconnect with it. To remember it.” Since their debut to the world music scene back in 1998, Snow Patrol have racked up impressive critical and commercial success, including 15 million global album sales, 1+ billion global track streams, 5 UK Platinum Albums, and are Grammy, BRIT Award and Mercury Music Prize nominated. Following their Fallen Empires tour, which ended back in 2012, band members Johnny McDaid, Nathan Connolly, Paul Wilson, and Jonny Quinn decided to take a step back from the band, and focus on their own projects. This extended break proved inspirational for the band, allowing them to pen ten powerful songs which feature on the impending album. Lead singer Lightbody spent this time on a search for clarity and connection, a common theme on which these songs were written and refined. “I think it’s the first record I’ve ever written that I haven’t just asked a bunch of questions. I actually tried to figure out why I was unhappy, why I feel out of place, why I’m afraid,” says Lightbody. “There’s nothing really to protect myself for– it’s all in the album. I want to remember.” This impulse was partially inspired by Lightbody’s father, who is suffering from dementia. “I think the album is defined by memory in a lot of ways,” says Lightbody, “including my father’s loss of memory.” See the tracklist for ‘Wildness’ below. 01 Life on Earth 02 Don’t Give In 03 Heal Me 04 Empress 05 A Dark Switch 06 What If This Is All the Love You Ever Get? 07 A Youth Written in Fire 08 Soon 09 Wild Horses 10 Life and Death