Night Train is an Exploration in Bad Choices
Keane’s latest album is a train wreck.
Keane
Night Train
Released on May 11, 2010
Where Keane’s sophomore album, Under The Iron Sea, had gusto, mystery, and the makings of an album
that was in all elements—instrumentally, vocally, and emotionally—engaging
and respectable radio-pop music, their follow up is anything but praiseworthy.
Night Train lacks any semblance that the singer is ruminating on life or his relationships. In fact, it’s as if this album lies in a chasm, where there is neither pure joy nor sorrow. The equals parts of brooding and bliss chasing are gone and in their stead, we find the band clapping their hands a lot, but for unclear reasons. We find fast food music and vocal whaling that feel like second-rate producers made this music, not artists, not musicians, not a band.
The second track, “Back In Time,” is the only highlight of this album; tickling eardrums with a gritty, goth-like fuzz intro that makes you want to rock out for a minute on Guitar Hero. Then it settles into a familiar Keane feel, built on dreamy melodies and vehement vocals. Lead singer Tom Chaplin releases milky vocals, singing, “Time I wait for you / Hibernating, hoping life will start again / Petal in the water / The days all seem the same / I dream by day, I shut the light out, I escape / I don’t want to wake, I don’t want to wake up.”
After this, there is nothing redeemable about the album. “Stop For A Minute” is an agonizing four minutes of birdcalls singing “ohuoh, ohuoh, ohuoh,” and what feels like more processed beats than instrumentation. The song breaks into this ear-bursting chanting and before you can recover, they’ve introduced K’naan to rap through the last minute or so of the song. I have no disrespect for K’naan, but the pairing of these artists is equivalent to anchovies in your cheerios.
It’s undeniable that the band has decided to stretch its parameters in music making, and sample a little bit of the world. “Ishin Denshin” starts off with what sounds like a Gorillaz intro and then warps into this utopian, feel-good, plastic painted smiles song that has an underlying ‘70s sitcom theme song presence. According to the band, this song was inspired by the Yellow Magic Orchestra, and introduces Tigarah to lay down a couple heavy rounds of Japanese in between Keane singing an English chorus that is not catchy, but rather kitschy.
“Your Love” feels like it could almost be an awesome song, but is littered with these synth-pop beats that don’t walk in stride with Chaplin’s vocals. It all ends for me when the seventh song, “Looking Back” begins with, and sustains, a musical composition that is eerily reminiscent of Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now,” most notably recognized as the Rocky theme song. And when K’naan comes back in as if to put the dagger in any listener’s ear… I can’t bring myself to listen to the final song.
I’m all for artists re-inventing themselves, exploring new instrumentation, and evolving over the course of their albums. Think Coldplay’s Viva La Vida versus Parachutes… progress can be good. But Keane’s new sound plays more like a whining loss than a triumph of the questioning and longing found in the previous albums.
High Point
“Back In Time” is the kind of song that will help make this summer swoon and find its way to a few different playlists.
Low Point
The obnoxious and uninspired existence of songs like “Gonna Fly Now” and “Stop For A Minute,” will have me boycotting Keane through their next album release.
Posted by Beth Yeckley on May 11, 2010 @ 6:30 am