The Place We Ran From their band-mate, "delighted that [Lightbody was] getting to exercise all his crazy ideas." In October 2009, Lightbody in his blog on Snow Patrol's website revealed the members of the group to be Richard Colburn (of Belle & Sebastian), Iain Archer, singer Miriam Kaufmann (Archer's wife), and Jacknife Lee. He talked about two more members whom he was very excited about, but didn't name them. He also stated that the album won't be country as was being reported, but would be "country-tinged". In January 2010, "Hot Press" reported Peter Buck (of R.E.M.) to be a member of the group. Lightbody described
Take Back the City by "Crack the Shutters". At the time of the release of the album, SP.com posted a section featuring lead singer and lyricist Gary Lightbody discussing the new songs, which was initially a Lightbody interview to RTÉ. About "Take Back the City", he said that though the song was inspired by Belfast and Northern Ireland in general, it applied to every other city and the relationship its inhabitants have with it. He said that it's "about the reasons why I grew up confused by my country and the reasons now why I love it so". Lightbody, who grew up in Belfast