Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 12/06/06
Label: Island

Around this time last year, Chris Martin was claiming Coldplay's new album would see his band take their place among the greats. An experimental statement, it would propel them to success of U2-like proportions. The latter part was certainly true.

"X&Y" was the biggest selling album of 2005. Experimental? Well, there was a Kraftwerk riff at the heart of "Talk", but otherwise it was business as usual: a series of highly melodic and mid-paced pop songs, tarred with such inane lyrics that even Noel Gallagher would have blushed. As a reflection of the times, it spoke volumes. But for all the hype, the world remains resolutely unchanged. It was another Coldplay album. Nothing more.

And now, twelve months on, we have Keane - arguably Coldplay's younger, slightly sicklier relative - saying much the same thing. On their MySpace page, the band describe the making of this album as a mission to "confront all our worst fears, to ruthlessly scrutinise ourselves, our relationships with each other, with other people, and with the world at large, and to make a journey into the darkest places we could find…We were writing, singing and performing with a drive, intensity and fury that is almost unrecognisable from our previous music."

Sounds impressive. Particularly so for a band whose stock-in-trade was plummy Radio 2-style melodies. So, how surprising to report that, at times, their second album lives up to its billing. Opening with a dense mid-paced swirl of sound entitled, quite fittingly, "Atlantic", "Under The Iron Sea" is, intermittingly, a glorious thing - harmonic, soaring, daring, even progressive, in the most positive sense of the word. It's a proper album, with a beginning a middle and an end, punctuated by moments of obvious beauty.

Only those with a huge grudge against the Kent-based trio (and let's face it, there's enough of those) could deny that they've taken huge step forwards from their debut. First single, "Is It Any Wonder" - all chiming Edge-style harmonics and tub-thumping rhythms - hints at a new found sonic muscularity; "A Better Day" reveals a hitherto unknown Beatles influence; and "Crystal Ball" locks onto its chorus like a heatseaker. OK, it's not avant-garde, and it's certainly no "Heart Of Darkness", but it marks a significant career progression. On the instrumental title track, they journey towards Flaming Lips territory, while "Hamburg Song", a stunning pipe-organ-led lament, resists all temptation to go bombastic.

Sadly, beyond these advances, Keane remain fatally hamstrung by words. Or to be precise, by Tim Rice-Oxley's lyrics. The words "why", "fly" and "down" "the" "line", that open "A Bad Dream", say it all. Indeed, despite the rousing music and the earnestness of Tom Chaplin's voice, Keane still sing passionately about not very much in particular. For all their grandiose intentions, it lends them an overbearing sense of bogusness.

So, "Under The Iron Sea" is really a missed opportunity. Two steps forward, three steps back. Coldplay should sleep easy, though in a few years time, who knows? If their musical capabilities were translated into lyrical clarity, then they'd surely be unstoppable. Until then, Keane remain a Bacharach still searching for their David.

    by Adam Webb