SNOW PATROL have confirmed eight headlining dates in the UK and Ireland throughout December and January. The tour opens in Newcastle's Metro Radio Arena on Wednesday, December 5.

Snow Patrol’s album Wildness, their first album in seven years, is out now. Wildness taps into something raw and primitive. Lead-singer and songwriter Gary Lightbody says of the album: “There are many types of wildness, but I think it can be distilled into two: the wildness of the modern age, all its 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 centred around. The loss of it. Trying to reconnect with it. To remember it.”

Since their 1998 debut, Songs for Polarbears, Snow Patrol has racked up an impressive number of critical and commercial accolades, including 15 million global album sales, 1+ billion global track streams, five UK Platinum Albums, and are Grammy, BRIT Award and Mercury Music Prize nominated. After their Fallen Empires tour ended in 2012, band members - which also include multi-instrumentalist Johnny McDaid, guitarist Nathan Connolly, bassist Paul Wilson, and drummer Jonny Quinn - decided to take a step back from the band, and focus on their own projects. Gary Lightbody continued his work with his Tired Pony side project with members of Belle and Sebastian, R.E.M, Reindeer Section and Fresh Young Fellows and moved to Los Angeles to begin writing songs for movies (including “This Is How You Walk On” for 2017’s Gifted), and doing a number of high-profile co-writes with Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Biffy Clyro, and One Direction. Taking this extended break from Snow Patrol proved to be a source of inspiration, and writing songs that were not pulled directly from his own psyche helped heal what Lightbody considered to be not so much writer’s block as life block.

n Snow Patrol, Newcastle, Metro Radio Arena, Wednesday December 5. For more information and tickets go to www.gigsandtours.com