Perfect Symmetry

So sweet mannered they make Coldplay look like marauding Visigoths by comparison, Keane stumbled into unexpected red-top infamy following frontman Tom Chaplin’s 2006 cocaine meltdown. But if you thought these travails would add a splash of grit to the band’s third album you’ve under-estimated their talent for poetic blandness. Listening to Perfect Symmetry it’s difficult to imagine Chaplin – who is ,after all, essentially a mouth-piece for songwriter, Tim Rice-Oxley – having been through anything more wrenching than a bad cough. Such reluctance to shock carries over into the music, expanded to include the occasional twinkling beat yet otherwise preserved in aspic. ‘Spiraling’ aims for funky but merely sounds a shade overheated; ‘Better Than This’ pinches the keyboard solo from ‘Ashes To Ashes’ and unsure of what to do with it. Admittedly, there’s no lack of craftsmanship – witness the New Order-go-to-grammer school dash of ‘Again And Again’ of ‘Love Is The End’s immaculate Rufus Wainwright-isms. Alas, this isn’t enough to dispel the stadium-pop haze. Keane were never going to air their troubles in public but Perfect Symmetry is so relentlessly slick it feels less like a comeback album than a brand re-boot.