| Product Summary | | Label: Interscope Records | | UPC: 00602498568279 | | Release Date: 6/20/2006 | | Buy.com Sku: 202625064 | | Item#: M2YHUR | | Buy.com Sales Rank: 49377 | Format:  CD |
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(P) 2006 Universal-Island Records Ltd under exclusive license to Interscope Records in the USA
(C) 2006 Universal-Island Records Ltd under exclusive license to Interscope Records in the USA
| | 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 recording 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.
| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info |  | Keane: Richard Hughes , Tom Chaplin, Tim Rice-Oxley. | | Recording information: 2006. | | Having won both critical and commercial acclaim for their debut album, HOPES AND FEARS, British band Keane pushes the hook-infested keyboard-rock on their sophomore effort in a darker, moodier direction. But UNDER THE IRON SEA features an intense, romantic brand of melancholy, with the trio of Tom Chaplin, Richard Hughes, and Tim Rice-Oxley vamping their way through vaulting rock melodies and power ballads, all without the aid of a single guitar. | | There are plenty of deliciously chewy guitar-like sounds, though, that Keane achieves by feeding electric pianos and synthesizers through various effects pedals and studio gear. The album begins with the gloomy pop gem "Atlantic," in which Chaplin broods over layers of swelling synths and insistent drum work before the song resolves into a clearing of pure melody. The song showcases Chaplin's soaring vocals, which are at points as tortured as Thom Yorke's and at others smoothly reminiscent of Freddie Mercury. On "Is It Any Wonder?" the verses strut along anxiously until a barely-in-control keyboard riff winds the song up into its gleeful chorus. Filled with moving, melodic rock, Keane's solid second effort points to further sonic expansions to come. |
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| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 06/20/2006 | | Original Release Date : 2006 | | Catalog ID : 0006855 | | Label : Interscope Records (USA) | | Number of Discs : 1 | | Studio/Live : Studio | | Mono/Stereo : Stereo | | SPAR Code : n/a | | UPC : 00602498568279 |
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| | Professional Reviews | | Rolling Stone (p.70)
- 3 stars out of 5 -- "[With] bigger doses of atmospheric keyboard...it offers some of the same tuneful pleasures of the debut, with big-voiced Tom Chaplin digging into his big bag of swooping choruses."Spin (p.90)
- 3 stars out of 5 -- "[With] lovely, piano-driven sounds....UNDER THE IRON SEA boasts an embarrassment of melodic riches..." Entertainment Weekly (p.69)
- "UNDER THE IRON SEA coats the group's typically hand-wringing lyrics with layers of symphonic embellishment." -- Grade: A- Q (p.108)
- 4 stars out of 5 -- "The lyrics may be downbeat, but musically there's all sorts of festival-friendly, stomach-clenching brightness..." Q (p.126)
- Ranked #6 in Q Magazine's "100 Greatest Albums of 2006." Mojo (Publisher)
(p.100)
- 3 stars out of 5 -- "Opening track 'Atlantic' has dark, dreamy quality they haven't displayed hitherto, 'Broken Toy' is jazzy and swoonsome...[and] 'Hamburg Song' is a gorgeously wistful ballad..." |
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