Best of 2003: Snow Patrol - Final Straw

Melancholic alt-rock from Scotland! What's not to like? Actually, this album is a little patchy, with "How To Be Dead", "Chocolate", "Somewhere a Clock is Ticking", and "Grazed Knee" towering over all the other songs. So why is it here? Partly because it's one of the few British albums of this year that I've even partly liked, but mainly it's due to these four songs being very good indeed. This isn't much of a write-up, is it? "The album's not all that great, but most British albums this year have sucked, so this is all I've come up with..."