Strangeland by Keane

Strangeland. (Keane)

Classic example of a band taking a retreat after alienating fan base with a departure from the main sound.

Album Rating: *** (3/5) 

One could see this coming.  From the first insights in the album trailer to the lead single “Silenced By The Night”, Keane were ready to return home, back to pleasing fans. They seem to be hurt badly by the reception of their last album “Perfect Symmetry” and the most recent EP “Night Train”. While the latter seems to be experimentation gone horribly wrong, the former remains highly under rated as compared to their first two records.  

An epic debut can sometimes be a bane for many bands as anything and everything that they do gets compared to it. Figuring out how to approach their later records remains the key.  Keane were quite successful with the follow up in “Under The Iron Sea” and Tom Chaplin is trying to utilize the same in this album with Tim Rice-Oxley’s keyboard playing the lead character. 

Ushering optimism from the first few seconds only, Tom declares “Fearful child have faith, you are shielded by the hand of love”. Adhering to the classic LP style, they have managed to confine the sparkling choruses in the first half mainly announcing their return to how people knew them best. It doesn’t get better than the first single “Silenced By The Night” which is the highlight and fairs equally with the classics such as “Somewhere Only We Know”. The twinkly piano remains a constant throughout with the anthemic build up, a crescendo so uplifting that Mr. Chaplin sounds more convincing than ever.  Announcing “You and I, we gonna rise again”, (perhaps the best moment of the record), it sets the tone and expectations ever so high. Sadly, the rest fails to live up to it, somewhat.

The second single, “Disconnected” is a grower with voice modulation and stylistic vocals the extent of experimentation on this album.  Tailor made for radio, this song keep you holding long enough to get the infectious melody stuck in your head for a while. “Watch How You Go” is a generic track, more so like a filer, with the usual and soothing, yet ever so common piano theme in the background. What follows next is a song that has been in the pipeline for quite a while now, “Sovereign Light Café”. Keane have played this song way before during their live performances and its reception forced them the addition and rightfully so. Bursting with energy and triumph chorus, this is a highly Springsteen reminiscent affair and Oxley sounding too desperate to get back to his piano rock roots with “Why did we ever go far from home?” 

Missing vintage pop tunes? Enter “On The Road”, sounding more hollow than their little love affair with K’Naan. The song writing gets cliché, the tunes get glittery and forcibly Pop. A slight improvement of the same does occur in the next track “The Starting Line” with a more soulful approach with better instrumentation although it fails to leave a major impact. Nonetheless, it does hold a sweet tune to precede the Radiohead-esque “Black Rain”. Seem to be taken from the post Kid-A phase of Radiohead, the sceptics might complain of a rip-off but Rice successfully manages to build a haunting set up long enough for “Neon River” to arrive and take control.

This song from a part of few saving glimpse of the second half, with a nicely structured backing vocals and enjoyable rhythm section to go along. But it all starts to go downhill from there with a couple of songs that follow immediately.  “Day Will Come” and “In Your Own Time” is highly uninspired and seems rushed for the completion of the album. The songs are neither catchy nor lyrically strong, a lot of it majorly forgettable. Lack lustre and seemingly a failed Snow Patrol attempt doesn’t help in the later track. Tom looks reluctant and hurried with his singing and the producers seems to be majorly at fault at not pointing out the band for omission of such tracks to make it to the ‘Strangeland’.

Thankfully enough it all ends on a good note with “Sea Fog”, reminding us of a classic “Hamburg Song” approach and a serene, calm piano with a majestically beautiful vocal performance by Tom. The song exemplifies that Keane can pull of a meditative track too along with the highly anthemic tunes. Rice rightfully sums up the entire effort and it seems that knowingly he declares “And I won’t fight through the rising tide, if that’s the way it has to be”. They haven’t fought, they haven’t given up either, they seem to keep everything on a stand by playing it safe and adopting more of “wait-and-watch” approach. The bonus tracks are rather failed attempts at making generic tunes and should be skipped. 

Brit pop has seen some major bands with the likes of Coldplay and Radiohead being offensive in their ways to depart from their usual sound and risking their loyal fan base for producing something new and creative. While Keane seemed to be on their way, they have now hurriedly completed the cycle with reverting back to the old formula and on “Strangeland”, they have not ventured into anything new with some catchy pop melody and mildly uplifting tracks. It is far from a triumphant return but somewhat satisfactory. 

Key Songs:  Silenced By The Night, Sovereign Light Café, Sea Fog. 

Tracklisting:

1. You Are Young (3:35)

2. Silenced By The Night (3:16)

3. Disconnected (3:57)

4. Watch How You Go (3:40)

5. Sovereign Light Café (3:38)

6. On The Road (3:56)

7. The Starting Line (4:12)

8. Black Rain (3:46)

9. Neon River (4:52)

10. Day Will Come (3:11)

11. In Your Own Time (3:43)

12. Sea Fog (3:25)

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