The curious thing about Keane is not that they polarise opinion, rather the fact I don’t think I know a single person who adore them – sure, I know a few who like the band, a couple who don’t mind them, but no-one who absolutely worship the ground they moodily shuffle on. Yet they sell many, many records, and play enormous arenas when they tour, and it was on their last tour that they recorded the tracks that make up this EP, a rather curious collection of songs that swing from the rather good to the completely terrible. Musically the glossy, clean production does make the music sound fairly invigorating, but appalling lyrics and clumsy guest artistes make most of the songs laughable.

But it starts well. Keane always seem to have one fantastic song (well, ‘Spiralling’), like the cheese in a mousetrap luring you in, causing your mind to muse that “hey, maybe this time, I’m going to like them”. The two opening tracks, the creepy instrumental ‘House Lights’ and the synth driven ‘Back in Time’ sound pretty marvellous. The latter takes a trick from The Editors, punching the song with a strong, exhilarating keyboard line that effortlessly sounds retro and contemporary in the same breath.

The quality drop though into ‘Stop For A Minute’ is enough to make your ears pop, with some of the worst lyrics on record. “Sometimes I feel like a little lost child, sometimes I feel like the chosen one“ croons Chaplin, proving his adeptness for opposites. Shame he didn’t show similar wisdom and prevented the intrusion of rap artist K’Naan, who seems to think the song is a bad lyric contest – “Baby you are just beautiful, from crown to your cuticles’ (aren’t cuticles bad things? Don’t people pay to have these removed).

So you have the very good, and the very bad, and everything else just sort of sits in the middle. ‘Clear Skies’ is full of heavily strummed guitars, handclaps and a curious, plinky-plonk melody that segues nicely into a faintly exciting guitar piece. ‘Ishin Denshin’ was probably quite glad when ‘Stop For A Minute’ turned up so it wouldn’t have to be the worst song on the album, and ‘Looking Back’ shows the danger of falling asleep on the sofa whilst watching a Rocky movie. If only they’d stuck to the sound of ‘Back in Time’, then this would have been a more interesting proposition. Sadly though, its just Keane, with added rappers. Which, to be honest, is far from alchemy.