My Amazon Reviews: Keane "Night Train"

This Train is Still Sitting in The Station
3 out of 5 Stars

In the old days, this would have been a budget priced EP. A chance for the band to blow-off a few experiments, B-Sides or fan favorites that didn't quite fit onto their proper albums. As such, "Night Train" is only so-so - three stars for average.

As much as they want to call it 8 songs, it's just 7 with one quickie instrumental overture to start things off. "House Lights" does offer the promise of something interesting, and then comes a really good single, "Back In Time." Lead vocalist Tom Chaplin has that blue-eyed angst thing down like a modern Daryl Hall, and this is the kind of song Keane excels at. Add the 80's syths, and this is a solid bit of retro-Britpop.

That is, unfortunately, the highlight. "Stop for a Minute" is one of two featuring rapper K'Naan, and it's an average song. It sounds like a leftover from "Perfect Symmetry." The other K'Nann contribution is "Looking Back," which rips off the theme from "Rocky." I kid you not. Dreadful. There's a third experiment with Tigarah, "You've Got to Help Yourself," which is the best of the collaborative efforts. She sings in Japanese, and the song itself is an inspired cover choice from the Yellow Magic Orchestra. For that, I give the band serious props.

One more song here merits purchase, the closing "My Shadow." It's the kind of dreamy piano pop that made fans fall in love with Keane in the first place. There's a part of me that wishes that Keane would go back to that "Under The Iron Sea" sound, but this EP and "Perfect Symmetry" have seen the band move more towards mainstream pop. I have posited a few times that, as new bands go, if Muse is the new century equivalent of Queen as Police power trio, Keane is Hall and Oates as filtered through Coldplay. Nice influences, but Muse seems to have transcended their, while Keane is still trying to figure out how. "Night Train" offers a half-hour holding pattern from a band that may still achieve brilliance.