Keane – Under The Iron Sea

Artist: Keane

Title: Under The Iron Sea

Label: Interscope

Rating: 8/10

CORPORATE LINE: “Under The Iron Sea” was recorded at The Magic Shop in Soho, New York, and back at Helioscentric Studios, near Battle.

In making this record we tried to confront all our worst fears, to ruthlessly scrutinise ourselves, our relationship with each other, with other people, and with the world at large, and to make a journey into the darkest places we could find.

It made for an incredibly intense atmosphere during the writing and recording of the album, and the resultant songs and sounds very much reflect that. In the songs we created a kind of sinister fairytale-world-gone-wrong, a feeling of confusion and numbness represented by a dark place under an impenetrable iron sea. To express all this we created entirely new sounds by putting an old electric piano and various analogue synths through many different combinations of vintage guitar effects pedals, creating soundscapes that range from the percussive to vast oppressive walls of distortion.

We were writing, singing and performing with a drive, intensity and fury that is almost unrecognizable from our previous music.

It was important that this album had a strong visual presence too, and the start of that was the collaboration with Irvine Welsh on Atlantic which offered somebody who both inspired us, and found his own inspiration in our music.

His resulting film echoes the importance of that visual identity we strove for.

We wrote Under The Iron Sea because we needed a record that was going to make us feel alive again. – Keane

THE GOOD:
“Is It Any Wonder?” – This time Keane meanders into U2 country—and its no wonder they pull it off very well. Finally, Keane has crafted a song that gets past their too often monotonous pace.
“Atlantic” – A sterling example of what drew so many fans to Keane in the first place—and also a good example of why so many compared them to Coldplay. This song isn’t an epic—however it ventures towards that territory even as it plods along at a bittersweet pace.
“Nothing In My Way” – A completely shameless hammed up chorus that works because it gets you singing along. It’ll bring out the sappiness in all of us.
“Crystal Ball” – After waiting through an incredibly long three-plus minute introduction you are offered a sweet melody—if the intro was cut out this might have been less bittersweet. This could be a radio single without that intro.

THE AVERAGE:
“Leaving So Soon?” – Heavy on the sentiment and melody—not so heavy on being great.
“A Bad Dream” – Keane doesn’t seem to know how to make a song that isn’t beautiful—even when the lyrics are lacking.

THE BAD:
Nothing.

FRANKLY: Keane allows for many opportunities for lackluster songs and yet they always make the most of very little. Keane writes songs that sound as if they are always an event. There are the rare songs, such as “Hamburg Song,” which sound merely mortal. The rest of the album sounds as if it should be a 10/10. Under The Iron Sea sounds epic. It truly sounds better than it is and that makes no sense. Even though that sounds harsh—Under The Iron Sea is really a good album and that says a lot considering we weren’t Keane fans to begin with. We found their last album to be Coldplay-lite and this is much better.

+ Rae Gun