With a combination of somewhat imaginative lyrics and a few catchy tunes, Snow Patrol's "A Hundred Million Suns" is decidedly OK.

The best part of owning "Million" is the insert booklet. For one, the album art is inspired - perhaps more inspired than the music - featuring photography of red, orange and yellow origami stars. Whoever designed the insert was kind enough to include song lyrics, which is always a plus.

Snow Patrol was smart to open with "If There's a Rocket Tie Me To It." It's one of the catchier tunes on the album, a status it achieves without repeating the same chorus lines five times. The track starts out slowly but picks up with the chorus, "A fire, a fire, you can only take what you can carry / A pulse, your pulse, it's the only thing I can remember."

"Take Back the City" is the next noteworthy piece. Another catchy, upbeat song, it has the potential to gain a slot on a "Cruising Around With the Windows Down" or "Night Out" play list. Its only - and major - flaw comes in its unnecessary repetition of the same three chorus stanzas.

After that, all songs pretty much drop off the radar of interest, with the exception of the last. Most tunes are monotonous and have the same relationship back stories: either they're breaking up, really in love, or breaking up in spite of being in love. Titles are also unimaginative and occasionally misleading, as is the case with "Set Down Your Glass," which is, sadly, not about drinking.

After all this mush of mediocrity, the saving grace for "A Hundred Million Suns" comes in "The Lightning Strike," a three-part, 16-minute song. The tunes are lulling, not boring. The lyrics are sweet and simple, not contrived. Its length and triadic construction are brave for a pop song.

Overall, "A Hundred Million Suns" isn't that bad. It's certainly not the worst album out this year. Unfortunately, there's nothing remarkable about it, either.

Grade: C

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