Album: “Strangeland” – Keane

Suggested by Jenia S

What should you check out during the week of May 9th 2012?

How about Keanes brand new album “Strangeland”?  The band will be in town at the Olympia on June 18th.

“Strangeland is the fourth studio album by English alternative rock band Keane, released from 4 May 2012 through Island Records. It is their first full length album since Perfect Symmetry (2008), as well as the first to feature bassist Jesse Quin as a permanent official member. The album’s name and track listing were revealed in late February 2012. It was preceded by the lead single “Silenced by the Night” on 13 March 2012.

Keane began working on demo tracks for Strangeland in 2010. In May 2011 the band met up with English producer Dan Grech-Marguerat, who according to Tim Rice-Oxley is “a massive Keane fan”.^[1] The producer said the band wanted to “[go] back to the songwriting of their first two albums”, while making an album that sounded “rich and simpler”.^[2] According to Rice-Oxley, the album is inspired by the The Vaccines’ album What Did You Expect from the Vaccines? (2011), which was produced by Grech-Marguerat: “We loved what Dan Grech did on The Vaccines album. It had just come out. He’d also done stuff with Radiohead and produced the second Howling Bells album, which I loved.”^[1]

Compared to Keane’s previous full-length studio album Perfect Symmetry (2008), the album focuses more on songwriting: “We wanted it be less production led and focus on making sure that the songs were great. You write a lot of shit songs to get to the good ones.” Tom Chaplin also said the sound of the album is reminiscent of earlier Keane, calling Perfect Symmetry “a bit self-indulgent”.^[1]

“Silenced by the Night” was released as the album’s lead single worldwide except for the United Kingdom on 13 March 2012. Keane performed “Silenced by the Night” for the first time on 12 March on American talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live!.^[19] The song was sent to US adult alternative radio stations on 26 March 2012. In the United Kingdom, the single was released on 15 April 2012 after the release date had been brought forward from 30 April 2012.^[21][22]

The second single, “Disconnected”, was released on 27 April 2012 in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.^“

Single: Silenced By The Night

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Tim Rice-Oxley, Tom Chaplin, Richard Hughes, Jesse Quin.

Source: wikipedia