September 15th, 2009 8:33am
Review: Noah & The Whale’s “First Days Of Spring”
MySpaceIt figures that of all the English folk-pop that has been such a staple of my musical diet over the last couple years, the most commercially successful – Noah & The Whale – would be my least favourite. That’s a very relative statement, however, as I still like the quartet alright. As their debut Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down, proved they can write a catchy tune or two but I found their whimsical approach to be a bit lacking in the substance department.
That being said, the new album First Days Of Spring shows the band making tremendous strides. The jaunty barroom folk-pop of Peaceful has been replaced with an expansive, cinematic sound that’s appropriately slow, sad and stately and given to orchestral swells or noisy skronks as the situation demands. It’s a risky approach for the band, basically abandoning the approach that brought them their success, but in strictly artistic measures it’s an unqualified success. Spring makes Noah & The Whale a much more interesting band and frontman Charlie Fink has turned his shortcomings into strengths, crafting a record that resonates truly and honestly with anyone who has ever had their heart broken.
Read more at Chromewaves →MP3: Noah & The Whale – “The First Days Of Spring”
LAist has an interview with Fanfarlo frontman Simon Balthazar. Their debut Reservoir seems to have been released in every possible combination of independently, on a label, digitally, physically, as an import, what have you, but come October 13 it’ll be officially available domestically in North America. So if you missed one of the other million chances to get a copy of this wonderful record, you are now plumb out of excuses.
The St. Louis Tribune interviews Frightened Rabbit.
Stuff talks to Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine. I’ve been saying that her debut Lungs doesn’t get a domestic release until October 13 but that may just be for the US – as was pointed out to me, it’s already available domestically in Canada. Oh who are we kidding – if you cared, you’d have downloaded it by now.
Editors have released a video for the first single from their forthcoming album In This Light & On This Evening, out October 13. And no, they were not kidding when they said they were going synthy on this record.
Video: Editors – “Papillon”
The Big Pink’s debut A Brief History Of Love isn’t out till next week, but is also available to stream now.
Stream: The Big Pink / A Brief History Of Love
The Quietus talks to Johnny Marr and The Cribs about their new record Ignore The Ignorant as well as Marr’s time with The Smiths. Further, The Guardian gets Marr to interview his former label boss Geoff Travis of Rough Trade.
Further with the Smiths, Marr’s former bandmate Andy Rourke was in town this past week as DJ for some TIFF parties – eye got an interview with the former Smiths bassist while Toronto Life overheard a briefer, more amusing conversation during his actual DJ set. And of course, Morrissey has taken umbrage with some of the stuff Rourke said in the eye interview. Mike Joyce presently has no comment on any of the above.
Oh yeah, that Smiths reunion is right around the corner. I can smell it.
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