2008年8月The Sun对新专辑评价:只有更好，没有更糟

I’ve heard wurst from these lads

Art attack … posh band Keane’s new German-made album is shockingly good

POSH lads of pop KEANE were once dubbed gentlemen addicted to a bottle of port by chart rivals KASABIAN.

The blue-blooded band earned a reputation for being wetter than a festival urinal despite singer TOM CHAPLIN checking into rehab for five weeks in 2006.

But the piano-thrashing trio have flogged millions of albums and they are about to hit the charts again after a year soaking up the decadent night life of Berlin while they recorded their new album.

And the results show the German city is a damn sight better inspiration than their East Sussex home town of Battle near Hastings.
Terrific

The gentlemen (not lads), Tom, TIM RICE-OXLEY and RICHARD HUGHES, have mutated into a funk-rock powerhouse.

And even though I have been a fierce critic of their canon of heart-stirring rock ballads in the past, the chaps gave me the first listen of the new album Perfect Symmetry.

It feels like confessing to dressing up as a woman at weekends but I am seriously impressed by their stylish reinvention.

It’s a terrific slice of pop fusing Let’s Dance-era BOWIE with PRINCE’s trademark dancefloor detonating songcraft.

Frontman Tom, without his old pudding bowl barnet, told me: “We revelled in the creative energy of Berlin.

“Most of the album was recorded in an old dancehall-turned-studio, from the snow of late winter to hot summer sun.

“We raided the dusty studio basement for broken synths and crazy percussion, and scribbled down lyrics in the faded Cabaret-esque splendour of our favourite all-night bar.”

Sounds like he’s still on the port, sadly.

The album is released on October 13 and comeback single Spiralling, which is available to download today, encapsulates the lads’ new-found fondness for funk.

Traditional Keane fans needn’t fret though. The lads haven’t ditched the arena-slaying anthems completely.

The album’s title track is a sky-scraping epic, stuffed full of choirs and emotion.

Again And Again rakes over a relationship crumbling and most obviously echoes Somewhere Only We Know.

The lads even kindly gave me the pic — possibly one inspired by giddy afternoons in sixth form art?

Ah well, it might be a c*** picture but they’ll be laughing all the way to the bank when the album hits the shops.