Infinite Shuffle

Have you ever wondered what Snow Patrol would sound like if they had more of a country tinge?

Of course you haven’t. But now you are. (Ha! I’m totally in your head.)

To extinguish that now-burning question, you need look no further than Tired Pony, the pseudo-supergroup formed in 2009 by Snow Patrol lead singer Gary Lightbody.

While touring with his main band, the native of Northern Ireland expressed his yearning to record a country album. Since it was not in step with Snow Patrol’s ethos, he enlisted the services of various collaborators — including R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Belle & Sebastian drummer Richard Colburn — and set up shop in Portland in January 2010.

Out of the weeklong recording session came 10 tracks that would comprise the album, The Place We Ran From, which was released in the United States in September of that year.

The album starts strong with such solid tracks as “Northwestern Skies”, “Point Me at Lost Islands” and “Dead American Writers”. The best song at the front end of the album is “Get On the Road”, which features backup vocals from Zooey Deschanel.

While Lightbody’s very distinct vocals are plastered throughout, the most notable songs at the end of the disc are those where he is absent. On the penultimate track, “The Good Book”, Editors lead singer Tom Smith lends his vocals. And the album’s best track, “I Am a Landslide”, was both written and sung by Iain Archer, a one-time member of Snow Patrol and a solo artist in his own right.

While a follow-up album would be highly anticipated, this is likely just a one-off project for Lightbody, who has said that he just needed to get this stuff out of his system.

If that’s the case, it’d be interesting to see what else he’s got building up inside of him.