‘Cause And Effect’: Keane’s Compelling Fifth Album
Tinged by loss and scarred by experience, the group’s 2019 album still convinces.
When Keane’s fourth album Strangeland was released in 2012, it seemed like business as usual. Widely touted as a return to the expansive, arena-filling sound of the band’s landmark debut Hopes And Fears, the record gave the British quartet a fourth consecutive U.K. No. 1 and was supported by an extensive tour. With everyone seemingly on top of the world, few suspected seven years would then elapse before the next Keane album Cause And Effect materialized.
However, while Keane kept up a united front in public, all was not well behind the scenes. With vocalist Tom Chaplin struggling with personal issues, the band went on hiatus in 2014. Yet while Chaplin succeeded in overcoming his troubles, he then channeled his energy into two solo albums: 2016’s The Wave and the following year’s festive collection Twelve Tales Of Christmas.
Listen to Keane’s Cause and Effect now.
Rather than Chaplin, it was Tim Rice-Oxley’s personal problems that finally drew Keane back together. Post-Strangeland, the keyboardist had written songs to order for artists including Gwen Stefani and Kylie Minogue, but he found the process uninspiring – and then his life took a significant dip when his marriage broke down.
“[After that], I started writing my own songs, intended for a solo album”, Rice-Oxley told The Irish Sun in 2019. “They were emotional songs, but I was anxious about going out there and doing it on my own. I’d lost confidence. Then, I met up with Tom and the other guys and I got the feeling we might do something again.”
“For me, personally, it was hearing Tim’s new songs and the vulnerability of them that made me want to sing them,” Chaplin added in the same interview. “I felt I could express what he had been through.”
With bassist Jesse Quin and drummer Richard Hughes also back on board, Keane recorded Cause And Effect with producer David Kosten (Bat For Lashes, Steven Wilson) manning the console. Eventually released on September 20, 2019 through Island, the album quickly rose to No. 2 on the U.K. charts, proving that Keane’s loyal fan base remained as strong as ever.
Cause And Effect didn’t yield a runaway hit in the vein of “Somewhere Only We Know” but its tracklist nonetheless featured some of Keane’s most resonant – and mature – material to date. Its initial pair of singles “The Way I Feel” and “Love Too Much” were suitably punchy, direct and highly radio-friendly, but the ballads formed the record’s real backbone.
Wreathed in sadness, songs such as “Phases” and “You’re Not Home” tapped into a feeling of abject loneliness, while both “Put The Radio On” and “Stupid Things” captured the agony, the ecstasy – and the emotional fallout – resulting from an extra-marital affair. Indeed, the sentiments all these songs are familiar to anyone who has loved and lost someone significant along the way – and that’s why Cause And Effect still makes for such a compelling listen today.
“I’m very proud of us for making an honest record, and that we haven’t shied away from difficult topics,” Tim Rice-Oxley reflected in 2019. “We felt how excited people were to have us back – and it’s been like that since. We are all in a good place and we are better at accepting who we are. We are being a bit kinder to each other.”
