Emotional alt-rockers Snow Patrol will return on Jan. 10, 2012 with their sixth studio album "Fallen Empires," the group announced on Tuesday (Oct. 11).

Best known for slow-building hits like "Run" and "Chasing Cars," the Glasgow-based group teamed with producer Jackknife Lee after recording in California starting in late 2010. Guests on the album include R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, folk-rock singer Lissie and Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, who's featured on the first advance single, "Called Out in the Dark." Also included? A gospel choir, on the "electro-dance club" track "I'll Never Let Go. 

"We wanted to make a massively ambitious record," says singer Gary Lightbody in a release, "a record unlike any other we've made before… We started writing songs that were more playful, even rawer than before - we were brave enough to do what we wanted as a band, rather than what convention dictated to us."

Snow Patrol will toast the album release with a performance on "The Late Show with David Letterman" on Jan. 9. "Fallen Empires," follows the band's 2008 effort, "A Hundred Million Suns," which has sold 209,000 copies in the U.S. according to Nielsen SoundScan.

by Jason Lipshutz, N.Y. click here for more information