For a band whose name seems to imply that it spends an inordinate amount of time trouping about the arctic climes, the guys in Snow Patrol seem to genuinely hate the cold. Which is probably why ever since November, they've been so committed to working on their new album -- it's genuinely a lot warmer inside a recording studio.

But now, as the sessions for the new album enter the home stretch, Snow Patrol have apparently decided to try converting keystrokes into heat, which is evident by the copious amounts of album updates the band has been posting on SnowPatrol.net.

"How are you all? I hope you're not too cold. It could freeze the tears of Satan himself over here in Ireland," frontman Gary Lightbody wrote in a recent post. "This is our penultimate week in the studio and things are still running [smoothly]. [I've] started vocals (lyrics all written) and I seem to be able to carry a tune ... however this may well be the relative calm before the storm as the last week of recording is generally hectic. People running about wildly shouting, 'The such-and-such machine has crashed and all the guitars are lost forever' and 'We've got the guitars back but everything else has blown up.' Someone may also catch on fire."

Barring any bouts of spontaneous combustion, the new Snow Patrol album, which Lightbody said will be called Eyes Open, will be finished by the end of the week. The band began working on the album in earnest back in July, writing more than 30 songs with producer Garrett Lee, who oversaw the session for the band's 2004 breakout record Final Straw (see [article id="1506074"]"Snow Patrol Chill Out In Studio For Final Straw Follow-Up"[/article]). Though it's not known what happened to the majority of those songs, Lightbody has mentioned a handful that will probably make the cut for Eyes Open, including "It's Beginning to Get to Me," "You're All I Have," "The Only Noise" and "Chasing Cars."

"We've experimented a lot more with sounds and odd instruments [that] we've never used and pushed ourselves as far as we can," Lightbody wrote of the new songs. "But the essence of what we are is still the same. Essentially it's based around melody."

Lightbody went on to add that three of the songs on the new album feature strings, and two more boast a full-blown choir. But it's not all bombast. Another tune, called "Set Fire to the Third Bar," is "a very fragile, dark-but-oddly-sweet, piano-led little thing" that provides a moment of respite from what is shaping up to be a pretty loud album.

"It's a pretty big sounding record so another brief moment of quiet won't hurt," Lightbody wrote. "[But] it's not going to be awash with bombast. In case anyone was worried."

The band will put the finishing touches on Eyes Open in Dublin, Glasgow and London over the next few weeks, and the album is due in stores in April.