Supposedly, the making of this album had to wait until frontman Danny O'Donoghue had finished moonlighting as a judge on The Voice. If so, you've got to hand it to the Irish trio for pulling together such a slick product so quickly. These "crazy creatives" – as the credits giddily put it – have soft-rock grandiosity down cold, and there's no reason #3 shouldn't cream off much of Snow Patrol's massive audience. Non-fans, though, will find the album fantastically bland, and be bemused by O'Donoghue's party trick, which is rapping. He embellishes several songs with a sweary American accent, adding mild embarrassment to songs that were trundling along effectively. (A bit of sleepy rhyming from Voice co-judge will.i.am adds little to Hall of Fame, either.) O'Donoghue's real metier is lyrics: he's a striking and emotional storyteller ("Would you pat me on the back or would you criticise me?" he asks his late father on If You Could See Me Now), and it makes #3 listenable.