Noah and the Whale aren't doing anything hugely unique on their debut album Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down. You can hear bands playing a quite similar brand of strummy, plummy folk-pop on indie film soundtracks, and there are quite strong threads of Belle & Sebastian, Arcade Fire, the Magic Numbers, and a hundred other popular indie poppers running through their sound. This familiarity could breed contempt very easily, but the band manages to escape relatively unscathed and come up with an album that adds to the canon instead of just being a pale exercise in copycat-ism. Credit singer/songwriter Charlie Fink for writing a batch of catchy songs with real emotional depth and singing them convincingly without ever coming close to overselling the emotion. Laura Marling deserves some credit, too, for providing lovely and absolutely essential backing vocals throughout (Fink produced her acclaimed debut record Alas I Cannot Swim), as does the band for providing subtle but dramatic backing at every turn. The core band of guitars, keys, and violins is accompanied by horns on most tracks and producer Eliot James is adept at blending all the instruments and creating dynamics. Without a light and agile touch, a track like "Give a Little Love" could have turned into a mawkish mess as the song swells to its emotional conclusion; as it stands, it becomes a heart-swelling moment of beauty instead. The group also do happy as well as they do heavy, for every melancholy tune like "Second Lover" there's a bouncy, smile-inducing song like "5 Years Time" that has a feeling of joy that's hard to convincingly convey in song without sounding trite and phony. Noah and the Whale never sound phony and they never feel forced, they also never seem in thrall to their influences. Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down could have been all kinds of terrible but instead turns out to be an album that fans of the bands mentioned earlier, plus fans of intelligent and heart-felt indie folk-pop, should probably investigate.
These days, a certain sound or production style will spread like wildfire until every new release is a copy of a copy of a copy. The more music we have access to, the more we seem to choose the same band over and over - photocopies, if you will. Noah and the Whale's Peaceful, The World [...] Related posts:Said The Whale - Howe Sounds/Taking Abalonia You know how they say that today's Vancouv...
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Stick a glockenspiel, a ukulele and a few handclaps on a young folk-pop quartet and voila, the claim of new Neutral Milk Hotel is easy to throw around. Add a reference to a Wes Anderson movie and you've got yourself something that's either very easy to dismiss as contrived or very easy to love. There's [...]
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Charlie Fink, his brother Doug, Tom Fiddle, and Urby Whale all make up a bright and sunny band from the UK, Noah and the Whale. Drawing on the narrative styles of Dylan and Wilson, Charlie Fink disperses his own views of life, death, and everything in between on Noah and the Whale’s debut LP Peaceful, [...]
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Get ready to have some fun. London's Noah and The Whale have just released an album with a cornucopia of instrumentation and sound. Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down starts with finger-picked guitar accented by finger-snaps on "2 Atoms and a Molecule." It's a song about navigating life's maze in search of love and companionship. If [...]~~
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Noah and the Whale have announced US tour dates, bringing the UK band across the great pond. The tour starts on September 16, the US release date of their debut Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down. We've had an opportunity to listen to Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down, and it's a standout album of the [...]ShareThis~~
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Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down is a sweet record - that much is evident immediately. But Noah & The Whale's debut is still very divisive~~
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Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down is a sweet record - that much is evident immediately. But Noah & The Whale's debut is still very divisive~~
More >
Stick a glockenspiel, a ukulele and a few handclaps on a young folk-pop quartet and voila, the claim of new Neutral Milk Hotel is easy to throw around. Add a reference to a Wes Anderson movie and you've got yourself something that's either very easy to dismiss as contrived or very easy to love. There's [...]
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I like this peppy little ditty. Amazon says this about them:2008 debut album from Noah and The Whale, who are adept at making earnest, poetic music. Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down is a collection of songs that muse on the connections between love, death and time. Though '5 Years Time' is the perfect invitation into their world, it is merely a piece of their puzzle. The songs move effortlessly...
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These days, a certain sound or production style will spread like wildfire until every new release is a copy of a copy of a copy. The more music we have access to, the more we seem to choose the same band over and over - photocopies, if you will. Noah and the Whale's Peaceful, The World [...] Related posts:Said The Whale - Howe Sounds/Taking Abalonia You know how they say that today's Vancouv...
More >
Charlie Fink, his brother Doug, Tom Fiddle, and Urby Whale all make up a bright and sunny band from the UK, Noah and the Whale. Drawing on the narrative styles of Dylan and Wilson, Charlie Fink disperses his own views of life, death, and everything in between on Noah and the Whale’s debut LP Peaceful, [...]
More >
If you haven't heard it recently, go on and listen to one of the finest pop songs I've heard in a long time. The type of pleasant pop that makes you want to wiggle and gyrate - a refreshing song that invokes the same happy/excited feelings experienced when I heard 2006's "Walk In The Park" for the first time. Besides, I really need no description for this song beyond the wonder it works on th...
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Saturday, December 13 The Entry / 9:00 pm / 18 NOAH & THE WHALE $10.00 adv | $10.00 door Shape Of My Heart
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Noah and the Whale have announced US tour dates, bringing the UK band across the great pond. The tour starts on September 16, the US release date of their debut Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down. We've had an opportunity to listen to Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down, and it's a standout album of the [...]ShareThis~~
More >
Get ready to have some fun. London's Noah and The Whale have just released an album with a cornucopia of instrumentation and sound. Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down starts with finger-picked guitar accented by finger-snaps on "2 Atoms and a Molecule." It's a song about navigating life's maze in search of love and companionship. If [...]~~
More >
With the onslaught of great bands coming out of the UK in the past few years, it safe to say that Noah & the Whale has made their mark as one of the best. On their debut album, Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down we got a first taste of their emotion driven rock, fronted by the deep vocals of lead singer Charlie Fink and backed by a great band of young musicians, including Tom Hobden, Urby Whale a...
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Tralier Charlie Fink is emerging as a creative prodigy, out of almost nowhere. Previously shadowed out by Laura Marling as just "the male voice" in Noah and the Whale's debut album, 'Peaceful, Lays Me Down', his band's follow-up sees him taking centre stage. Some, believe he cracks under the pressure. Others, believe this to be a [...]
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I love this song. I'm not allowed to embed the video, which is quite entertaining. Here's a link:Noah and the Whale - Five Years TimeI layed in bed last night thinking about how much I enjoy hand clapping in songs. I have no idea why. Maybe it stems from me faking injuries as a child in basketball games so that people would applaud me. Did I not get enough love (applause) as a kid? Hmph.I am go...
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 "Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down")
