Night Train Review

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(More customer reviews)So, you're a Keane fan are you? Well, I hope you haven't bought the new CD yet...if you have, I'm sorry. Keane's newest release is 8 songs long, clocking in at a whopping 31 minutes. Sure, the Beatles albums were often short and no one would say they weren't great...and there have been recent memorable releases that have barely stretched a half hour...Paper Tigers by Caesars jumps right to mind. However, upon closer look and listen, this Keane CD falls very short of being called a classic. You can start with saying it's really a 7 song CD that clocks in at just under 30 minutes, as track 1, "House Lights", is a minute and 24 seconds of nothing. "Back In Time", which follows, is a good song, but nothing that will make you forget standout songs from past Keane CD's. When it's over, it's left your head. That's followed by the official single, "Stop For A Minute", which sounds extremely promising until guest rapper, K'Naan, sings lines like "Baby, you are just beautiful from your crown to your cuticles". Sadly, that gem might be one of the better lines and it makes me cringe every time I hear it. I'm certainly not against rap...even if it doesn't quite fit Keane's style...but I am against bad rap. The song "Clear Skies" follows, and it's easily the highlight of the CD. With hand claps and vivid lyrics, Keane makes you wonder if the ship has been righted and we're set for smooth sailing. But then "Ishin Denshin (You've Got To Help Yourself)" starts to play and you vomit a little in your mouth. I don't know what guest vocalist Tigarah is singing in Japanese, but if it's as syrupy sweet as the English lyrics, I don't want to know. I skip this song more than any other on the CD, which is saying a lot. Next up is "Your Love"...another song which makes you think things are headed in the right direction. "Looking Back", another song with guest vocalist K'Naan, follows and it's not much better than the first he guested on. Lines like "hard to separate my past from a rhyme, cause how could you separate milk from lime" will leave you scratching your head. Instead of thinking things are going to get better, you start to wonder if this Canadian singer/rapper has some incriminating photos of the guys in the band? Or maybe this is some cruel joke? Did Keane have to finish out a contract? Finally, mercilessly, the CD ends with "My Shadow"...which ends the CD on a decent note...if you didn't pop it out of your CD player before then.
Bottom line...if you're a big Keane fan, I highly recommend you stay away from this CD, or else you may be scarred for life. If you feel you must own some new music from Keane, definitely download "Your Love" and "Clear Skies". And if you can get an edited version of "Stop For A Minute", minus the rap...go there too. Otherwise...pop Hopes & Fears, Under The Iron Sea, or even Perfect Symmetry into your CD player...you'll be much happier you did.

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Following the worldwide success of their first three albums, the members of Keane will now release Night Train (Cherrytree/Interscope). The band who has had three consecutive #1 albums in their native UK and have played sold out shows throughout the US will also soon announce tour dates in North America for this coming Spring.Night Train features eight powerful new tracks which were written and recorded during the band's Perfect Symmetry world tour that saw them playing to packed arenas in 28 countries.The album takes its title from the band's favorite mode of transportation during the tour, and includes Keane's genre-busting collaborations with Somali/Canadian rapper K'Naan, `Stop For A Minute' and `Looking Back'. "I think these tracks show us in a completely different light." says Keane frontman Tom Chaplin. Other highlights include "Ishin Denshin (You've Got To HelpYourself)", which features Japanese MC Tigarah, as well as the gorgeous "Your Love", which hangs around a rare lead vocal from the band's Ivor Novello-winning songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley.Keane, who are Tom Chaplin, Richard Hughes, and Tim Rice-Oxley; together they have sold close to 10 million albums copies of their albums Hopes And Fears (2004), Under The Iron Sea (2006) and Perfect Symmetry (2008). They have played sold-out arena tours, and were the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. With songs such as Is It Any Wonder?, Everybody's Changing, Crystal Ball and Somewhere Only We Know, Keane is one of Britain's best-loved bands and will surprise and thrill their fans all over again.

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Lonely Avenue Review

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(More customer reviews)I've been a Ben Folds fan since the beginning of his career, and I've got to say that this release is by far his most "different." I mean that in the best way possible. As most of you know, Nick Hornby wrote the lyrics this time around. I personally think Ben's lyrics are just as good as Hornby's, but if there's anything a guest lyricist's contribution did, it had Ben approach songwriting from a totally different perspective. I think Ben is a great songwriter in every single way, but he's been doing it for 16 + years with the same formula. Having to write music around someone else's words seems to have given Ben a reason to really perfect the music. He said it himself in recent reviews; he felt like he had to live up to the quality of the lyrics being sent to him. You can tell extra attention was given to these songs, so that they could reflect exactly what Hornby was trying to get across. I've got to say, it made Ben's music sound fresher than it has in years (and I don't think he's put out a bad one yet.)
This is, however, an album you need to pay a lot of attention to if you want to get the most out of it. Rockin the Suburbs has some great lyrics, but you don't need to listen to the words to have fun with it. The songs are bouncy and catchy, which is something that can't be said as much about Lonely Avenue. The songs aren't quite as instantly catchy, but I would not put that against the "quality" of the songs at all. It's just a bit more of a grower, mainly because you have to pay close attention to how the music plays off the words to really FEEL the album like you're supposed to. Once it clicks, you're going to find yourself lost in this record. It's the most stylistic thing he's done since Reinhold Messener, way back in 99'.
I reviewed the normal version simply because I knew that this was going to be where most people would be reading a review, but I must tell you that the deluxe version is the definitive version. It comes with lots of pictures, short Hornby stories, full lyrics, all wrapped up in a little hard cover book, sized like a thick cd. It's really a fun package, and its worth the extra money.
This is just a well balanced, stylish, catchy, deep, and intelligent record that should please anyone who can respect this genre of music. This is probably a one-and-done collaboration, so I've got to give it to Ben and Nick. This is a well earned five star review.

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'It has its own voice, which comes from some place between the two of us,' says author, Oscar-nominated screenwriter and now lyricist Nick Hornby of 'Lonely Avenue,' his unique, words-and-music collaboration with Ben Folds. Singer-songwriter-pianist Folds puts it more bluntly: 'I felt like I'd found something rare on eBay or something. Nick should have done it before but it's his first big effort and I feel like I really scored here.' Hornby first attracted the attention of music fans - and artists like Folds - with his brilliant, bittersweet 1995 novel 'High Fidelity,' about an obsessive record collector's crumbling personal life that was translated into a cult classic film starring John Cusack and even a stage musical. Hornby has been an admirer since attending Folds' first U.K. shows. In fact, Hornby devoted an entire essay in his 2002 collection of music-themed short pieces, 'Songbook,' to Folds, praising the 'sophisticated simplicity' of Folds' writing. The London-based Hornby supplied the words for 'Lonely Avenue,' a project sparked by the long-distance friendship that developed after Hornby published 'Songbook.' Nashville resident Folds then set Hornby's lyrics to music in the vintage, orchestra-sized studio he'd rescued from oblivion and has been working in for the last ten years. The hero of 'High Fidelity' would have approved: Folds conceived the album as a vinyl release and recorded everything live in analog to two-inch tape, finally mastering the disc at Abbey Road. Joining Folds in the studio at various points were his own band, a string section, and legendary arranger Paul Buckmaster, who, as Folds describes him, is 'the person who makes you feel the goose bumps at the chorus and you don't know why.' (Those are Buckmaster's string charts, for example, on Elton John's 'Tiny Dancer' and The Rolling Stones' 'Moonlight Mile.') 'Lonely Avenue' offers equal measures of humor and pathos in often deceptively cheerful songs. Folds literally gives voice to Hornby's endearingly mixed up, lovelorn characters, who come across as sympathetic even at their most hapless. An aging pop singer has to endlessly and agonizingly reprise his one hit, a paean to a woman he left years ago, to the fans who still attend his shows ('Belinda'). A mother deliberately avoids a stunning view of New Years Eve fireworks as she ministers to her seriously ill child in a London hospital ('Picture Window'). Hornby reconstructs the world of crippled, Brill Building-era songwriter Doc Pomus circa 1962 ('Doc Pomus'), and imagines, with unexpected tenderness, the moment when Alaskan teenager Levi Johnston discovered he'd impregnated the newly announced vice-presidential candidate's daughter, Bristol Palin. The result is an 11-song set that's as playful as it is soul-stirring, and more than a little magical. Says Folds, 'With some albums the comet goes by and you grab it while it's passing and everything you do has some comet dust on it. This is one of those albums.' Also available in a Deluxe Edition that includes the album on CD, four short stories by Hornby, and 15 images by acclaimed photographer Joel Meyerowitz, all in a hardbound, 152-page book.

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