After the release of their debut album, Hopes and Fears, Keane embarked upon a world tour, which reached virtually all Europe and North America and which concluded in October 2005. The band had been having trouble since the middle of 2004, shortly after the release of the debut. "Hamburg Song", composed circa August 2004, deals with the strained relationship between singer Tom Chaplin and pianist Tim Rice-Oxley. During the tour, Rice-Oxley kept composing new songs that would later appear on future releases, such as the B-sides "Let It Slide" and "Thin Air". According to Chaplin, Rice-Oxley had composed at least 50 tracks as of April 2006.
The name of the album was based on a lyric in the track "Crystal Ball", which reads "I've lost my heart, I buried it too deep, under the Iron Sea". It also shares its title with the eighth track, "The Iron Sea", Keane's first instrumental piece. The "Iron Sea" is the metaphorical name for the group's (especially Rice-Oxley's) preoccupations about their uncertain future and the sudden fame they had to deal with.
The album opened with "Atlantic", the first single from the album. The track expressed fear of aging, set to Rice-Oxley's layers of electric piano and synthesizer strings. "Is It Any Wonder" was composed of pianos fed with distortion pedals and was written about the Iraq War."Nothing in My Way" was described as "catchy" and "gently lifting". "Leaving So Soon?" was considered a fan favourite and is the most uptempo song on the album at 144 BPM. "A Bad Dream" was described as an "enchanting tune" with density and drama. The slowest song on the album "Hamburg Song" was about personal conflicts between Rice-Oxley and Chaplin and features solely piano and organ as its instrumentation, with drums being absent besides some light ride hits at the end. "Put It Behind You" was primarily written by drummer Richard Hughes in mid-2004 after breaking up with his girlfriend.
"The Iron Sea" was Keane's first instrumental track, followed by "Crystal Ball" which has been compared to "early electro U2" and featured Chaplin's "swooning chorus". "Try Again", a downbeat track was noted for its "pristine sound and
hushed majesty" and features Chaplin's distortion piano in the outro. "Broken Toy", the longest song in Keane's discography was a jazz-influenced track in 9
8 time and has been compared to Radiohead's "Pyramid Song". The closing track "The Frog Prince" was written about another musician
who Rice-Oxley described as 'talented, but very arrogant'.
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