However puzzling that choice may be, at least it shows some degree of creative intent. Opener “You Are Young” forces vocalist Tom Chaplin to shoehorn the line “You’ve got time to realize you’re shielded by the hands of love/Because you are young” into the song’s meter, while the ridiculous climax of “Sovereign Light Café” finds him shouting, “Yeah, I’m going where the people know my name,” recasting the song as a dead-serious spin on the theme from Cheers.
That isn’t the case on Strangeland: Far too many of the songs are marred by mixed metaphors and awkwardly constructed lines that speak to the overall sloppiness of the album’s writing. With a tracklist that reads more like a list of chapter titles from a self-help book than actual songs, Strangeland plays as though the band is trying to give themselves a pep talk-and at this point, they desperately need one.Įven at Keane’s peak, principal songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley’s songs teetered on the verge of being overwrought and maudlin, but there was at least refinement in their construction. Unfortunately, the AAA radio mainstays’ fourth full-length effort, Strangeland, only mires the band (now a quartet, thanks to the addition of bassist Jesse Quin) further in an identity crisis.
THE KEANE STRANGELAND HOW TO
I went back on consecutive mornings hoping to get more of the same sort of thing, to provide the band with more options on those and other buildings but of course the lights never came back on that early again, always once the sun was up and in that slip of time between night and day where I got my cover and life feels like it has momentarily paused, it remained dark.Keane alienated a good half of their fanbase with the chintzy, ‘80s-inspired Perfect Symmetry and then proved they had no idea how to right the ship on 2010’s dreadful Night Train EP. It is just a portrait of life in that town. It was the first time I’d been to that part of the seafront so there is a truth to the original photo that I really love. We didn’t contrive which lights came on or that I was going to frame that shot at all. What I like about the image is that it is a genuine story. You can see additional images of the limited edition A4 book featuring my photos that he designed for the album here. Additional image grading was done by the album’s splendid designer Rob Cherny (Tourist) to fit the vibe and route of the campaign he’d reached with the band. The original shot is fairly colourless, all pale blues punctuated with yellow light as you’d imagine at that time of day. I hope it gets across the idea of a journey. I hope it captures some of the isolation, intimacy and otherworldliness I felt on that morning. I shot it fast as I could knowing the moment – and the light – was going to pass very quickly. I didn’t think I could come up with another shot in Bexhill that would encapsulate the album better. I was standing right in front of and in, the next album cover. The pressure was getting slightly monolithic from where I was standing.Īt around half five in the morning I saw the lights slowly coming on in the towerblocks and I knew from where I was on the beach looking back up at the horizon that that was my shot. I just couldn’t think but I only had a couple of days left to come up with a cover everyone would like. I also just wanted to be indoors and out of the spirit shattering cold. I wanted to tell a human story without having anyone in the photo itself. I knew I was getting some interesting shots but the weather was massively distracting and I wasn’t sure I was nailing anything that would work as a cover. I think it was about -8 degrees and colder still with the high winds. My hands were so numb through my gloves I couldn’t feel my camera at all. I’d been on the beach since 4am doing long exposures of the shifting tide.
The photos were taken in Bexhill-On-Sea last February on what were a couple of the most relentlessly cold days of the year – my car got stuck in frozen snow on the outskirts of the town and I had to frame shots where drifts of frozen snow on the ground were not visible.
We had a couple of false starts getting the narrative right for the visuals and eventually we settled on the photographic route you are all familiar with. I knew where the band were coming from sonically with this record having been in and out of the studio with them for over a year documenting the recording process. “Shooting the album cover and campaign images for Keane’s recent number one album, Strangeland. Here, explained in Alex’s own words, is the process behind the project. Shot by Alex Lake and featured on the cover of Strangeland, the apartments and shelter are situated on Bexhill seafront close to the Sovereign Light Café.
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