Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

Keane

Nothing In My Way

Label: Island Release Date: 30/10/2006

17958
thommo by Thomas Blatchford November 3rd, 2006

Scoff all you like - I’m too far away to glare at you effectively enough - but I never hated Keane. Never a seething dislike or contempt and, hey, if we were picking sides I’d stand somewhere near the back of the 'pissing champagne' crowd. Yes, Keane were always slightly bland, a bit wet, generally (in the derogatory sense) very nice. But at least they were bland and wet and nice and good at it. Plus, with the advent of the actually surprisingly agreeable ‘Is It Any Wonder?’, it did almost seem like Keane could break loose from the straightjacket that marked them as lacking in spine as they were in guitar.

But a song like ‘Nothing In My Way’ makes it very hard to give them the benefit of the doubt anymore. It’s telling enough that the third single from Under The Iron Sea already sounds like scraping the barrel (or, at least, making a replica barrel exactly like the barrel that they carried songs from their last album in). But in a disheartening and all too predictable manner, ‘Nothing In My Way’ sounds like you would expect most bands to after they realise their template sells by the squillion. All the Keane hallmarks are here but neutered and hollow: derivative piano plonking; infuriating inoffensiveness that even a promo video about horse porn and knife crime couldn’t cancel out; lyrics about “lonely souls” and having “such a nice time”, what ho!; a chorus that you can imagine Mr Chaplin punching the air along to. It’s the sign of a band slipping numbly back into their familiar ‘sound’ only to find that, the second or third or umpteenth time around, it isn’t all too flattering.

Oh yeah sorry, blah blah drug addict blah blah middle class blah blah fat face blah blah blah. Can I go home now?

  • 2
    Thomas Blatchford's Score
Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • Drowned in Sound's Albums of the Year 2025


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing



Left-arrow

Viarosa

Where The Killers Run

Mobback
17962
17957

The Raconteurs

Broken Boy Soldier

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Drowned in Sound's Albums of the Year 2025

  • 106149
  • news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145

    news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143
  • news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141

    news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139
  • Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138

    Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137
  • Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
MORE


    review


    Jessie J - Who You Are

  • 67447
  • feature


    Battles: Tyondai Braxton talks Mirrored

  • 22473

    Interview


    Travis: Album by Album with Fran Healy

  • 91230
  • feature


    DiS meets Pretty Girls Make Graves

  • 14541

    Interview


    DiS meets Courtney Taylor-Taylor of The Dandy W...

  • 96470
  • feature


    Conversing with myself and another: DiS meets F...

  • 49768

    Interview


    "I wouldn't want to go on tour just playing old...

  • 95814
  • Interview


    Going Elemental: DiS Meets Sharon Van Etten

  • 106002
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND