Keane

While their fellow countrymen in Coldplay were living Viva la Vida earlier this year, England's Keane were busy putting the finishing touches on Perfect Symmetry, an eager, piano-driven Brit pop opus that also siphons from the same tanks as like-sounding acts such as Radiohead and Placebo. While Keane have less of an emotionally unstable edge as those two bands do, Keane are shooting for the moon and their firing on all pistons with this lively album. The band armed with killer, polished hooks, dancey grooves and expansive, epic songs. Clearly, Keane have paid attention to songcraft, and all of these factors are what aligns them so closely with Coldplay.

With anti-romantic lyrics like, "I dreamed I was drowning in the river Thames," vocalist Tom Chaplin's buzzy, sometimes androgynous vibrato will weaken the knees of American girls that harbor not-so-secret crushes on British boys who proudly slap their sensitive hearts on their worn-n-torn leather jacket sleeves. Chaplin has a Thom Yorke'ian tone in his voice, but he's flashier and way more accessible than Yorke or Radiohead for that matter.

The aptly named "Spiralling" and the gorgeous "Lovers are Losing" are cadenced hits in the making, both of which speak to the Brit pop afficianado lurking deep within all pop music fans. Keane explore the full gamut of their sound on "Better Than This," a song that begs to be listened to on a pair of headphones so that each layer and nuance of sound can be unlocked with several intimate listens. There's so much going on in this song that a cursory listen won't do the song or Keane any justice.

Perfect Symmetry is perfectly bouyant and upbeat. The closest American cousin would be the defunct and criminally overlooked Remy Zero. Perhaps Keane will explode onto mainstream America's radar with this delightful collection. Maybe not. Maybe it'll remain an undiscovered gem that only a precious few latch on to. Whatever the case, the only thing that's certain is the potential that's there.

— Amy Sciarretto
10.13.08

Keane bids adieu to uplifting ballads and ushers in a different style -- '80s-influenced pop -- with Perfect Symmetry. While the album isn't solely devoted to exploring that new genre, it's certainly the focus, and "Spiralling" appropriately kickstarts the set with whooping vocals and retro synthesizers. "When we fall in love," sings Tom Chaplin in his Wembley-geared voice, "we're just falling in love with ourselves." Coming from the same mouth that once crooned the over-earnest strains of "Somewhere Only We Know," those lyrics are wholly different -- a sign that four years spent in the shadow of U2, Coldplay, and other like-minded bands have convinced Keane to make their own Achtung Baby. Of course, that album saw U2 turning sonic experimentation into something entirely inventive, which Perfect Symmetry doesn't quite accomplish with its own mixture. This isn't quite art, after all; it's mostly just fun, shot through with a self-consciously cheesy approach that's engineered to sound little like the department-store rock of 2004's Hopes and Fears. "Fun" seems to be at the top of the band's agenda, though, and Perfect Symmetry accordingly succeeds in doing away with most of the pre-conceived notions that accompany Keane records. The "old" sound doesn't even surface until midway through the album, when the album's title track offers up a combination of sparse piano notes (later giving way to dense, double-fisted arpeggios) and a meteoric melody in the chorus. But that's the exception, not the rule, and Perfect Symmetry sounds more comfortable during its truly unexpected moments: the spacy blips and bleeps of "You Haven't Told Me Anything," the synthesized anthem "Again and Again," and the energetic "Wooooooh!" that opens the entire album. The band's underlying strength remains Chaplin's ability to turn a melodic phrase with grace and dexterity, which fails to lose its vitality no matter the musical context, but Keane's willingness to take these left-hand turns deserves its own share of accolades. ~ Andrew Leahey, All Music Guide