Product Description
-------------------
"Under The Iron Sea" was recorded at The Magic Shop in Soho, New
York, and back at Helioscentric Studios, near Battle.
In making this record we tried to confront all our worst fears,
to ruthlessly scrutinise ourselves, our relationship with each
other, with other people, and with the world at large, and to
make a journey into the darkest places we could find.
It made for an incredibly intense atmosphere during the writing
and of the album, and the resultant songs and sounds
very much reflect that. In the songs we created a kind of
sinister fairytale-world-gone-wrong, a feeling of confusion and
numbness represented by a dark place under an impenetrable iron
sea. To express all this we created entirely new sounds by
putting an old electric piano and various analogue synths through
many different combinations of vintage guitar effects pedals,
creating soundscapes that range from the percussive to vast
oppressive walls of distortion.
We were writing, singing and performing with a drive, intensity
and fury that is almost unrecognisable from our previous music.
It was important that this album had a strong visual presence
too, and the start of that was the collaboration with Irvine
Welsh on ¡®Atlantic¡¯ offered somebody who both inspired us, and
found his own inspiration in our music.
His resulting film echoes the importance of that visual identity
we strove for.
We wrote Under The Iron Sea because we needed a record that was
going to make us feel alive again.
.com
----
If U2 hadn't already released a pair of career retrospective
discs, this British trio's second album would neatly do the trick
in one. Not much of a surprise since Keane spent a good deal of
time supporting Bono and company following the release their
breakthrough debut, Hopes and Fears. From the melancholic
"Crystal Ball" to the sinisterly beautiful "Is It Any Wonder?" (a
blatant homage to "Zoo Station"), Keane have perfected their
forebear's dark stadium-rock formula on their second album, all
the more miraculous considering it was once again done without
guitars. If Under the Iron Sea sounds considerably edgier than
its predecessor, that's because it was recorded while the band
was on the verge of splitting. But the friction has also given
Keane a renewed sense of purpose, breaking the mid-tempo monotony
with vibrant material such as "Nothing in My Way" and "Try
Again": soaring songs that make the band sound unsinkable.
--Aidin Vaziri
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About the Artist
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Band: Tom Chin Richard Hughes Tim Rice-Oxley
We grew up and went to school together in and around a small town
called 'Battle' in the south of England. There is not much to do
in Battle, but in the late 1980s, during school holidays spent
playing football, we discovered music, like most kids do, and
pretty soon were swapping our favourite new albums and artists.
Tim had a few piano lessons at school, but quickly bored of the
endless scales and classical music, so gave up trying, only to
discover that he could play Buddy Holly tunes with what he had
picked up. That was it, the start of years playing the songs he
enjoyed listening to on a Casio keyboard, programming a
pocket-sized sequencer, and trying to write his own songs to play
to his friends.
As soon as Rich started out on the drums we started playing
together, recruiting a guitarist; Dominic, and soon after, a
singer; Tom.
Music was the only thing we all wanted to do. We had nobody to
teach us aside from the tapes in our walkmans, and our Beatles?
songbooks, so it took a while to get the hang of playing and
writing. By 1999, we moved to London to seek a record deal and
conquer the world.
Two years on, without a record deal, and with one less member,
the three of us fled back to the countryside, broke and
downhearted, suffering the ill-effects of two years spent in
dead-end jobs by day, and dank rehearsal rooms by night.
Salvation arrived, as ever, in the form of music; an rtunity
to go to a dilapidated farmhouse in France and record some new
demos. The guitar lines were forgotten, and a new sound gradually
emerged. ? Pianos and keyboard took over and Tom?s voice found
the space it needed. We headed back home, eager to play our new
songs to people.
By January 2003 we?d been given the chance to release a record on
tiny-but-legendary indie label, Fierce Panda, whose head honcho
had seen us play at the 12 Bar Club in London. We went back to
Battle and recorded 'Everybody's Changing'. The song was made
'Single of the Week' by influential Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq, and
gradually picked up by others. All 500 copies sold, and we could
barely believe it. We took toured the UK for the first time,
playing to packed houses and empty rooms. We paid for the fuel
and food with what we had earned the night before, ?the money
safely stored in a plastic food container.
The lure of a real band that was getting played on the radio and
touring the UK was too much to resist, and pretty much all of the
big labels had got their chequebooks out. We signed a deal that
offered us total creative control over our music, and went to a
small local studio called Helioscentric to record and co-produce
(with Andy Green) our debut album 'Hopes and Fears' in late 2003,
and headed back out on the road.
We released 'Hopes and Fears' in May 2004.
The continuing tour we embarked upon led us around the world for
another eighteen months. In 2004 we played four UK tours, and by
October 2005 had played 5 American tours which included playing
alongside U2 at Madison Square Gardens, visited Mexico, Japan,
Australia, toured Europe, played festivals all over the world,
and played at the London 'Live 8' show.
'Hopes and Fears' sold over 5 million copies worldwide. We won
two Brit Awards in 2005 (British Breakthrough Act and Best
Album); Q Magazine's Best Album award; and were nominated in the
Best New Act category at The Grammys, but the touring was taking
its toll - we needed to get back into the studio, and back to our
homes. During every break we could find since 2004, we had been
bits and pieces, and in October 2005 we headed straight
back into the studio for the new sessions with Andy Green,
finishing off in December.
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