Keane - Hopes and Fears

The power of music is that it can take you anywhere you want to go. It can make you happy, sad, reflective, optimistic, pessimistic, joyous, pretty much anything that suits you. Artists like Norah Jones and Coldplay, focus on the power of the soothing ballad to build their careers. Songs that make you dream away the day and relax with a smile on your face fill their albums and fuel their success. The tricky part is that laid back music can often fall into the background, never really being noticed. Hopes And Fears marks the stateside landing of Britain’s Keane, a trio whose dreamy pop songs focus on setting the listener down for a musical massage of relaxation. “Something Only We Know” opens the album with a catchy brit-pop longing love song, pulling you in with interest. “This Is The Last Time” hints at the 80’s feel the entire album has. You can’t really pinpoint a vocal influence, but every song sounds oddly like it was influenced from two decades ago. The meat of the album kind of flies by with a recurring theme sticking throughout; when you pay attention you groove, when you don’t you can miss the entire album. “Can’t Stop Now,” for example, is groovy background music, building steadily to a nice end. It is a nice enough song, but if you don’t want to listen, it won’t force you to pay attention. The album ending “Bedshaped” is one of the highlights of the disc, bringing full circle the experience, ending on a high note, like it began. This is one of those fence-riding albums that kind of stump you as a listener. You definitely don’t have anything hateful or bad to say about it, but nothing really makes it a noteworthy experience. The songs individually succeed at making a laid back sound that has enough catchy and poppy overtones to satisfy, but as a whole the album just kind of fades. If you are in the mood to relax, this album will do it and do it admirably, but be careful, if you aren’t paying attention you may miss it. [www.keanemusic.com]