Keane

You’d be right to notice that Keane sounds an awful lot like fellow Brits Coldplay, what with the piano-driven melodies and heavy pop hooks. Both bands dip from the same pot—almost uncomfortably so—but there’s room for more than one keys-loving pop-rock outfit. The 2008 album Perfect Symmetry changed things up a bit and found the band steering away from poignant piano ballads and delivering instead new-wave-influenced dance rock, as heard in the excellent “Spiralling.” The group’s newest album, Strangeland, isn’t as daring as Symmetry, though it marks a pleasant enough return to the Keane sounds of old.

Updated 06/13/2012