The Wave

Tom Chaplin knows his way around a bombastic pop song. Recorded while Keane lay dormant, their frontman’s first solo album zeroes in on his strengths and amps up the emotion. “Still Waiting” is the first of several poised and poignant tracks to call on the pain of his various addiction battles (“Buried in the rubbles, there’s a boy in trouble,” it begins), while “Quicksilver” (written with the album’s producer Matt ‘Aqualung’ Hales) surrounds Chaplin’s towering vocal with a giddy orchestral arrangement.