A lot of people get quite angry with Keane, especially in England where they hate the fact that they went to private schools and the fact that lead singer Tom Chaplin’s cheeks are too rosy and he seems like a bit of a choir boy – despite upping his rock n’ roll credentials with a stint in rehab for drugs and booze a couple of years ago.

Maybe the biggest gripe with Keane, however, is the irresistible nature of their soaring melodies – there’s nothing worse than catching yourself belting out a chorus line from a band you’ve decided to hate. Everybody knows the hits from their debut, Hopes and Fears – Somewhere Only We Know and Everybody’s Changing. No matter how you slice it, those are some fine tracks.

Music snobs are the worst! They just don’t get it. Good music can come from anywhere – from a rare piece of vinyl in a basement NY record store/hipster hangout, to the “most played list” on MTV. I remember having a really drawn out argument with some American girl in London, around the time that the Strokes had gone huge with Is This It. She had a problem with the Strokes being too hip or too hyped or something, and insisted that their music sucked. Maybe they were a bunch of spoiled Manhattan rich kids pretending to be the Stooges, but that didn’t stop the songs from being perfectly formed little nuggets of rock n’ roll mastery. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of crap music out there, but people who consider themselves to be “into music” get snooty when they deem it to be too mainstream, too light or not gritty enough to satisfy their tragically hip souls. Hit Me Baby One More Time? Absolute corker. Fact.

[Here here! – Seth]

Keane have sold 10 million albums so far. Their previous release, Perfect Symmetry, didn’t get the recognition it deserved. It had a more hard edges sound and coupled with Chaplin’s darker, post-rehab subject matter, the album was a far weightier proposition than its predecessors. Give it a listen if you have a chance.

This new one is like one of those quick “in-between” mini albums that bands like to make. Like when U2 did Zooropa and Radiohead did Kid A. Both those albums came quickly after their previous full-length extravaganzas and both were quite experimental and different. That’s what Keane are doing with Night Train, except this isn’t an offbeat art project, if anything; many of the tracks are surprisingly poptastic. They’ve even got a rapper on two tracks. All sounds potentially a bit Flight of the Concords, except not intentionally funny, but Keane wear it lightly – it’s a bit of experimentation and who cares? It’s just a quick mini album, written and recorded at various locations around the world whilst on tour.

There’s nothing in the least bit fluffy about the start of Night Train. It’s a bit like an electro-pop version of the start of Hell’s Bells by ACDC. Then it kicks in nicely to a sick tune called Back In Time. It’s got a tinge of 80’s Duran Duran about it and it works well for this band’s sense of melody and Tom Chaplin’s incredible pipes.

Stop For A Minute features that rapper I mentioned earlier. At the time of recording, K’Naan was a little-known Somalian born Canadian rapper, but since then has become quite famous for Wavin’ Your Flag – the Coca Cola World Cup anthem. Stop For A Minute (which I believe was released as a single a couple of months ago) has one of those typically huge choruses that Keane are so good at. This is very much a pop song – maybe if it had been released after the WC, it would have been one of those monster smash hits that the whole world just goes crazy for. It sounds like one of those tunes to me. It’s a great uplifting pop song.

Elsewhere on Night Train we hear Keane indulging in a little melancholy (My Shadow) and further experiments in electro-pop. This isn’t necessarily the most consistent album stylistically, it’s more like the sound of a band deciding where to go next, which is exactly what makes it a great listen. It’s like they’ve just decided to take the pressure off and loosen up. All the songs have one thing in common: they go somewhere. They all have a start, middle and an end, which keeps you listening. Even if you’re a hardcore Rammstein fan, there’s always room in your life for some well-crafted melodic pop songs. They’re harder to master than people imagine.