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Noah and the Whale – The First Days of Spring

Posted: 08 Aug 2009 04:12 PM PDT

So what’s up with Noah and the Whale, that London folk four-piece that got your toes tapping with the exuberant ray of sunshine “Five Years Time”? They are back this fall with their second album entitled The First Days of Spring, which comes out at the end of August in the UK, but we Americans have to wait until early October. NATWFDOS

The album begins with somber drumming paired with sparse guitar and violin work on the title track. You begin to ask yourself, “Is this really a Noah and the Whale record?” Then the voice of Charlie Fink comes out of the shadows, like the welcome twinkling of a faraway lighthouse, and it all makes sense. The fragility of Fink’s voice, so memorable in their debut album Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down, is combined with emotion-building instrumentation and still hits the spot in this sophomore effort.

Recorded at Rak Studios in London, this album overall has a richer sound in comparison to Peaceful…. Choral backing vocals lend an almost church-like atmosphere to several tracks – hear the joyous “Love of an Orchestra”. Tom Hobden is still on violin, but it’s his piano-playing that is more prominent here. Charlie’s brother and NATW drummer Doug Fink wasn’t kidding when he told us in an interview back in April to expect music that would be “more mature, more electrical, more experimental.” Don’t misunderstand me: there are still plenty of those trademark NATW melancholy, pensive moments. Sometimes your insides ache from the heartbreak, loneliness, and sadness dripping from Charlie Fink’s voice and the violin passages of Hobden – see “Our Window” and “My Broken Heart”.

But this would not be an album about Spring, the season for rebirth, without a chance for new beginnings being chronicled in an uplifting song. Better days are ahead with the appropriately optimistic “Blue Skies”: “this is a song for anyone with a broken heart / this is a song for anyone who can’t get out of bed / oh, I’ll do anything to be happy / oh, ‘cos blue skies are calling / but I know it’s hard.” And the band has branched out further cinematically with a Charlie Fink-directed film that utilizes the album as its soundtrack. It debuted at Suffolk, England’s alternative, artsy music Latitude Festival in July and will be shown at the band’s upcoming gigs. The film (starring English model Daisy Lowe, daughter of Bush’s Gavin Rossdale) will also be included in the deluxe CD/DVD version of the album when it comes out later this year. But for now, you can watch the England-iana trailer here, complete with “Blue Skies” in the musical background.

The First Days of Spring will be available in CD and deluxe CD/DVD formats and released on 31 August in the UK and 6 October in the U.S. Following September and October gigs that have the band traveling all over Britain, the band have hinted on their official website that they will be returning stateside for additional concerts on this side of the pond in October.

Tracklisting:
01. The First Days of Spring
02. Our Window
03. I Have Nothing
04. My Broken Heart
05. Instrumental I
06. Love of an Orchestra
07. Instrumental II
08. Stranger
09. Blue Skies
10. Slow Glass
11. My Door is Always Open

Noah and the Whale: website | myspace | Noah and the Whale with Anni Rossi and Ferraby Lionheart @ Black Cat, Washington DC | Interview with: Noah and the Whale