Keane: Hopes and Fears : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

On its surprising debut album, seemingly underpowered Brit trio Keane (piano, drums, vocals) reconfigures the high-romantic aesthetic introduced by Radiohead and mainstreamed by Coldplay as the launchpad for a serious hookfest. Hopes and Fears contains more hooks than most pop groups manage in their careers; the album brims with unabashedly grand, sun-breaking-through-the-clouds gestures. Tim Rice-Oxley's piano playing, like Chris Martin's, is at once percussive and expansive; drummer Richard Hughes executes the strategic fills with pomp and circumstance; and when singer Tom Chaplin lets loose with his extraordinary tenor, he seems to be channeling Freddie Mercury. There's no letup, from the ascending opener, "Somewhere Only We Know," to the monumental closer, "Bedshaped," on which Rice-Oxley makes up for the absence of guitar with a synth solo of power-ballad-y theatricality. Cynics may find this nonstop ear candy hard to swallow, but what's the point of resisting such delirious beauty when submitting to it feels so good?