The first solo album by Keane singer Tom Chaplin has a clean-cut MOR sheen. It is aglow with mid-paced piano-led ballads with crowd-pleasing choruses. There’s also a strong streak of melancholy. Opening track Still Waiting paints a scene of death and destruction: “Buried in the rubble, there’s a boy in trouble.” The song could be about Aleppo, but Chaplin doesn’t say. He’s unspecific, too, in more introspective songs such as Hardened Heart, in which he says he “drove to the point of madness just to feel something real” – which could be about his well-publicised struggles with addiction. Or not.
Of course, lyrics with a broad sweep, that you can interpret any way you like, helped Keane sell millions of albums and touch stadium audiences, and The Wave’s hooks and polish won’t harm its chances of doing the same. It’s not a sonically adventurous album, but Chaplin’s voice on tender songs such as the title track is as affecting as ever.
