Keane Strangeland album review

On Keane’s fourth studio album the Sussex rockers delve back into their comfortable zone of piano led, soft-rock.

Their third album, Perfect Symmetry, saw the four-piece experiment with the world of synth and guitar driven pop, to critical success and acknowledge that in order to remain significant in modern music you have to evolve.

But Strangeland is a rather flat return to the type of music that shot them to stardom in 2004 with Hopes and Fears.

The album opens with the hollow sounding We Are Young, which sees the boys holding on to yesteryear rather than stretching themselves.

Standout track Sovereign Light Cafe is an ode to their teenage days, with its youthful frustration blowing away anything else on the album.

The rest merely blends into inoffensive ballads with sweet melodies that lack any gusto or guts.

Strangeland is a step backwards for a group that had a chance to try something different and emerge from behind the shadows of other mainstream ‘Dad pop’ radio-friendly bands like Coldplay and Snow Patrol.