Keane - Strangeland


I should probably warn you straight away that every bone in my body urges me to react to Keane's music with shrieks, involuntary spasms and spitting. Sure, they had a couple of cute songs in Bedshaped, Somewhere Only We Know and Bad Dream but ever since 2009 the band have taken on this mantle of becoming a Killers tribute band, aiming for the safe-as-houses synthrock niche about as lazily and clumsily as a drunk uncle making a beeline for the bridesmaids at a wedding. Spiralling was okay. But the rest, especially that EP they did with the single with K'Naan, have just made me wretch and plot more creative suicides.

I know it's quite typical for alternative music outlets to tear the band to pieces, especially in light of this record being their fifth #1 album, but I can't effectively label myself as an enduring hater: I own Hopes and Fears on CD and enjoyed Under the Iron Sea even more, but I don't know - maybe there is an element of immaturity and uncool about them that's formed such a strong barrier. But I can say with some conviction that their newer material is terrible. Here's why.

The album does start brightly - frontman Tom Chaplin does his best Brandon Flowers impression and a bright, fun piano tune dominates, and the whole celebration-of-youth shtick is very much relevant right now with Tulisa, fun. and the Naked and Famous having hit songs with the word in their title. It's a pretty nice song, all around. Single 'Silent by the Night', and I'm not sure if this is just because I saw George Osbourne nodding along to it on some BBC politics show they somehow got to perform on, is just cringeworthy from start to finish. Lyrics like "got the radio on, got the wheels in motion"  and an inanely upbeat aesthetic make it one of the cheesiest listening experiences I've ever endured, and the whole sound is such a blatant rip-off of the Killers' Day & Age efforts. 'Disconnected' too contains Chaplin at his most irksome, singing about stones in his shoes and walking in circles, with alarmingly clear diction and an elevator-music backing.

'Watch How You Go' is all sadface and opens with the ominous "the more we rush about the less we do", which immediately inspires Randy Newman thoughts and that's never a good thing. However, 'Sovereign Light Cafe' is yet another of those indisputably uplifting and endearing tracks that it'd be quite cruel of me to lay into, and it's quite listenable which is more than I can say for the rest. 'On the Road' has a relatively strong melody and an energetic pace that's again not bad. 'The Starting Line', however, from the very first melodramatic piano chord, is stooped in ridiculous metaphors ("streetlights that are daggers to your eyes") and self-serving "meaningfulness" that's just forced. The slightly more original pianos about 'Black Rain' are more interesting to listen to but again drenched in soppy sentiment and tired 'angelic' background cliches.

'Neon River' (as though using a song title two consonants different to one on Day & Age will save their originality) pulls off the risky moves of rhyming night with fight, way with day and here with disappear. 'Day Will Come' sounds like Robyn's Dancing On My Own put through a U2 filter and left out in the sun for too long. 'In Your Own Time' makes me want to kill myself and 'Sea Fog' is actually quite nice.


Well at least we can go 2 years without more of this shit now.

Rating: 1.5/10
Highlights: You Are Young, Sovereign Light Cafe, Sea Fog
Avoid: Silenced by the Night, Disconnected, The Starting Line, Neon River, In Your Own Time

Artwork Watch: Is that really the strangest Strangeland they could imagine? I've seen weirder sights in Weston-Super-Mare.

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