Published in Madrid, November 2008
In my final months as a student, whilst I was busy drinking myself into a stupor, all the chat around the bar table was about this band called Keane. For us, the main point of interest was their lack of a guitar. It seemed nonsensical, a bit like buying a car without an engine or going to a fine Italian restaurant that didn’t have an extravagant waiter. It was decided that this was a major disability and we were shocked when, in spite of their glaring handicap, they emerged out of the musical mist to become one of the country’s biggest bands.
This was back in 2004, and some might remember that Britain was then in the grip of a bizarre regression towards glam rock. The root of this problem was an odd band called The Darkness, who played enormous, epic rock songs with idiotic lyrics, whilst strutting about the stage like drunken peacocks. Imitation being the highest form of worship, people across the country were investing in the trappings of glam – from the flamboyant shirts to the leather trousers. In one particularly regrettable act of gender bending, one of my friends invested in the orange, spiky Ziggy Stardust hairstyle and some thick eyeliner. It was to haunt him for years after.
Then, just as night follows day, Keane turned up sans guitars. If such things existed as trend analysts for music, they would have surely predicted their career to be short and uneventful. As it was, it wasn’t. Their debut album scorched its way to the top of the album charts, where it hovered for eighteen months, and lead singles Somewhere Only We Know and Everybody’s Changing blared constantly from the commercial radio stations across the country.
Judging by their name, you might assume that Keane are from Ireland, but you’d be wrong. They are about as English as a red telephone box or a lump of Wensleydale cheese. To back this fact up, you can consider that the pianist and songwriter has the wonderfully plummy name of Timothy James Rice Oxley and the lead singer, a chap called Tom Chaplin who looks like a ruddy-faced postman, learnt to sing in the Chapel Choir of Tonbridge School.
Their music is driven by the piano of Rice Oxley, a formidably talented musician that Coldplay once tried to recruit. Fed through a series of effects from distortion to modulation, his piano is often used to create a Spector-esque wall of sound or to jangle quietly alongside the melodic vocals of Chaplin. Somewhere Only We Know is typical of Keane’s unique sound, lively and whimsical, but softer moments litter their albums too. Of notable beauty is the glimmering ballad Hamburg Song.
It’s now four years since Keane arrived in the public conscience to my initial dismay. And in that time they have scooped a fistful of awards, they’ve released three successful albums and they have forged a razor sharp reputation for the quality of their live performances.
It’s ‘difficult third album’ time now, but the early signs look auspicious. A flurry of excellent reviews greeted the release of Perfect Symmetry in October, whilst lead single, Spiralling, was downloaded by half a million people in a week and has been nominated for a Q Award. They still haven’t got the guitars, but they’re obviously doing something right.
Filed under: Music | Tagged: album, Difficult, Hamburg, Keane, Perfect, Song, Symmetry, third
