1. Somewhere Only We Know
2. Bend And Break
3. We Might As Well Be Strangers
4. Everybody's Changing
5. Your Eyes Open
6. She Has No Time
7. Can't Stop Now
8. Sunshine
9. This Is The Last Time
10. On A Day Like Today
11. Untitled 1
12. Bedshaped
So, what to make of Keane?,
A rock-and-roll band so forcibly
un-rock-and-roll that they went one further than the White
Stripes, who only banished the bass guitar from proceedings,
and removed all guitars from their unique sound. However, the
sound that erupts on this, their debut, is not that of the White
Stripes. Keane themselves must be thoroughly sick and tired of
the comparison I am about to make, but it does ring true. With
nothing but drums (Richard Hughes), piano (Tim Rice-Oxley),
emotional vocals (Tom Chaplin, who bears a striking resemblance
to Starsailor singer James Walsh) and some small electronic
sounds on the side, Keane seem to be "The New Coldplay". No bad
thing, as goodness only knows what's going to happen to Chris
Martin's bunch post-Gwyneth and Apple. And let's not forget that,
like Coldplay, these are public-school lads. And, one final point
on the Coldplay thing - Rice-Oxley was at one point asked to be
Coldplay's keyboard player.
So, enough comparisons, what's the album like? Well, it opens with
the beautiful breakthrough single, Somewhere Only We Know. The first
time I heard this record was on the radio as I was waking up one
dreary Thursday morning. It was a moment of sheer charm as I lay
considering the day ahead. Following on from that would be a hard
task, but Bend And Break more than does the job. If released as a
single, it could become the band's 'Clocks' - a ubiquitous tune that,
no matter how often you hear it, it never makes you want to strangle
the nearest TV muzak compiler. It's the first of a few Keane songs
to reference 'The Other Side' - a tip of the hat to David Gray? It's
got all the makings of a huge song - if released, it could be huge.
If not, it will always remain a fans' favourite.
The next song takes
the tone down a bit. We Might As Well Be Strangers begins with a
sensitive 'quiet piano, aching lyrics' part, in which Chaplin claims
that 'we might as well be strangers in another world'. After that,
the song does perk up a bit, but it doesn't get any happier lyrically.
It's a moment well worth savouring. Following is the follow-up single
to Somewhere Only We Know, Everybody's Changing. It's a song about
getting lost in the quagmire of everyday that manages to remain
deceptively upbeat and was, if we're honest, a killer choice of
single.
Track Five sees a change of direction. Your Eyes Open is
an edgy number, in which you can sense anger and injustice in
Chaplin's lyric: 'it's a lonely place you have run to / Morning comes /
And you don't want to know me any more'. She Has No Time, which follows,
opens very creepily, before Tom Chaplin's voice is heard virtually alone.
It follows on from Your Eyes Open, 'you think your days are ordinary /
and no-one ever thinks about you'. Can't Stop Now opens with a huge,
roaring piano part, which subsides temporarily for Chaplin's verse,
but comes back in for the chorus, thankfully, where Chaplin bemoans
that he 'has troubles of his own'.
Sunshine is another one with a creepy opening part, and this doesn't
change throughout the piece. Chaplin calls himself an idiot because
'only some idiot would let you go / But if I'm one thing / then
that's the one thing / I should know'. This Is The Last Time adresses
his obviously dependant lover in an MI5 kind-of way - 'This is the last
time / that I will say these words ... the first of many lies'. On A Day
Like Today starts in a similar way to Sunshine, but veers into a proper
piano ballad at the 1:20 mark, and just grows in volume, in a similar
way to Snow Patrol's recent hit 'Run', and leaves you with a feeling of
awe.
The penultimate track, Untitled 1 is a creepy Radiohead-esque ballad
with lines likes 'a house on fire / a wall of stone'. It's the final song
on the album to use the words 'the other side'. At around 2:15, it all goes
very Moby, but, arguably, the song is better for it. The final track,
Bedshaped is another anthem in the making. It starts off sounding as
though Rice-Oxley is infatuated with all the sound effects he can make, but
continues with a soft vocal and piano line. The chorus is a joyous one, with
some brilliantly written lines both musically and lyrically. The second
verse goes back to the first's format, as does the next chorus. According
to the lyrics booklet, it should end at 3:18, but all the synthesised choirs
and Doctor Who-esque noises follow for another minute and a half, with
Chaplin repeating the chorus over the top. A classic-in-waiting.
But what of the album overall? The songs can be divided into two
categories - the creepily mourning ones, and the upbeat, deceptively poppy
ones. They're well balanced, although there is a section in the middle
of the album where you get the feeling that they overdid it on the
creepiness a bit. Of course some of the songs sound the same - that's an inherent
problem if you ditch the guitars. All the effects that can be done on guitar
just can't be replicated on piano, and despite the best efforts of the
electro-squiffery, after about 50 minutes, you do begin to notice it.
It's not such a bad thing though - because the majority of it is so damn
good, you wouldn't really mind if the melodies were played on a Mongolian
Nose-flute.
And on that slightly weird note, I'll say one more thing. Keane have made
one of the year's essential albums. Buy it.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
