Pitchfork
Iron Sea is filled with the sort of greeting-card poetry that would even give Bono pause.
Observer Music Monthly
When they're not apeing War-era U2 ('Crystal Ball') they're apeing Achtung Baby-era U2 ('Is It Any Wonder?'). Otherwise they plod along, piano clip-clopping under all the electronic fuss, in thrall to their own pseudo-profundity.
PopMatters
It??s as if Keane desperately wanted to move past the ??three blokes playing simple little songs? label, but didn??t have the technical skill or the guts to pull it off.
Under The Radar
If this is what happens when Keane attempt to delve into darkness, the mind reels at what these guys would sound like when they??re in a good mood. [#14]
Stylus Magazine
Keane have talked up Under the Iron Sea as being bleaker, more raw than their debut album. It is about the things they have seen over the last two years, the problems, the horrors, the sin. But Keane have not been uncovering the carcases of napalmed babies for the last two years. They??ve been playing music.
