ABSENCE makes the heart grow fonder on the evidence of Keane’s one-off album launch gig.

It takes a great deal of trust to play an entire new album from start to finish to an audience, especially when you may have tested a fanbase to the limits with a break stretching back to 2013.

But they got away with it as they showcased their fifth album Cause and Effect in its entirety to an attentive crowd in a town which Keane fans regard as the band’s spiritual home even though they come from up the A21 in Battle.

The album opens with You’re Not Home but Keane were very much at home in front of a crowd that included fans who had flown in from Argentina and Canada, as well as some of their parents Although Tom Chaplin’s demons are well documented, the latest offering charts the inner turmoil of Tim Rice-Oxley following a devastating break-up but you would not know as it no melancholy dirge and, thankfully, easy to attune to even if you’ve only had one listen of the album.

True to form, Chaplin still delivers rich vocals, which can soar and carry you along, and there is plenty to get his teeth into. While Love Too Much is unashamedly poppy, Strange Room, which was introduced as about being shagging, and Stupid Things are much darker and the lyrics bare all.

A mistake by Chaplin in the last track, I Need Your Love, got the band smiling and then Keane gave the De La Warr crowd what it wanted and festival goers had enjoyed this summer.

After thanking the crowd for their patience, and also Bexhill’s Music’s Not Dead for staging the “in store” show, they ran through four tracks from previous albums including the anthem Somewhere Only We Know.

Fittingly, their homage to the Sovereign Light Cafe, a hell of a stone’s throw down the prom from the venue, was an upbeat and apt encore on a night of trepidation but ultimately triumph for the quartet.