(MUSIC) KEANE wanders on a new ‘Strangeland’

KEANE wanders on a new ‘Strangeland’ — their latest album, that is. Strangeland(2012) is the fourth studio album by English alternative rock band Keane. It is their first full length album since Perfect Symmetry (2008), as well as the first to feature bassist Jesse Quin as an official member.Keane offers a refreshing sound through Strangeland. Helen Lear of The Music describes the new album as,“middle-of-the-road indie-pop”, and “pretty much what you would expect from Keane, but the tempo is noticeably more upbeat and the style more diverse than previous albums. It offers some more fun in a grown-up style that may attract new fans to take a listen.”

Strangeland features sixteen tracks such as the redemptive declamations of “Silenced by the Night”, the spirit-swelling “Neon River”, the bittersweet friendship song “Watch How You Go”, the electronica element of “Black Rain”, the narrative “Sovereign Light Café” and songs which are unmistakably ‘Keane’ like “Disconnected” and “Day Will Come” plus other promising tracks like “You are Young”, “On the Road”, “The Starting Line”, “In Your Own Time”, “Sea Fog”, “Run with Me”, “The Boys”, “It’s Not True” and “Strangeland” — all of which are absolutely worth listening to. As what Keane drummer Richard Hughes stated, ‘Whatever it is that makes us ‘Keane’ – that invisible glue – is still there. And you can hear it all over Strangeland.’

Keane achieved mainstream success with the release of their debut album, Hopes and Fears, in 2004. The album won multiple awards and was the second best-selling British album of the year. Their second studio album, Under the Iron Sea, continued the band’s success, topping the album charts in the UK and debuting at number-four on the Billboard 200 chart. In May 2008, both Hopes and Fears and Under the Iron Sea were voted by readers of Q magazine as among the best British albums ever, with Keane, The Beatles, Oasis and Radiohead as the only artists having two albums in the Top 20.