Review:

on 2012-01-24 CharlesMartel Said:

I thought it was Jonah and the whale. Oh well, never mind. Whatever the band call themselves, I would reckon that this album is probably a contender for the most disappointing release of 2011. Their first two releases set the band apart from the usual run-of-the-mill indie rock which has bedevilled this country for the last decade or so. There were some interesting touches on the previous two albums, but when Laura Marling left it all seemed to start to go wrong.

"Last Night on Earth" is just another example of record company driven radio fodder dressed up as independent music. My guess is that whatever control the band had over their creative output, the record company seized the controls at this point for I cannot think of any reason why the band should have changed so much. From English folk-inspired melodies they have transmuted into clones of a thousand other MTV staples.

Sure, Charlie Finks' voice is still unique and he still has the capacity to turn a lyric. But something is wrong. Take the spelling test of a song L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. There are some really good lyrics in here, full of imagery which really does conjure up a picture - you can almost envisage Little Lisa Looney Tunes standing before you. But then Noah and the Whale go and ruin it by turning the chorus into a catchy spelling bee. You can just hear the producer saying - "It's ok guys, but it needs something for the listener to sing along to". And so, the singalong chorus is added. Shame.

To make matters worse, the second half of the album falls dead flat. The first five tunes are at least perky enough to keep you listening, but straight after "Give It All Back" ends, the album plunges to the depths quicker than you can say Titanic. For some reason, Noah and the Whale think they can move into the territory of eighties synth pop and the result is disastrous. Thankfully, the second half only lasts fifteen minutes (does that tell you something, I wonder), but it is one of the longest fifteen minutes you will ever undergo.

Now while I recognise that every band has to grow and change, I feel that Noah and the Whale have taken that change for the worse. For a band who started out as an almost acoustic group singing brief songs from the heart, someone somewhere decided they would sound good as a pastiche of eighties pop rock. It is hardly surprising that it should have failed.
Rating: 3/10

on 2011-01-23 icegig Said:

The London band Noah and The Whale are set to release their third album, Last Night On Earth, on March 15th via Mercury Records. The band's first album since 2009 will feature ten brand new tracks, including the infectiously melodic first single "L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N."


Lead singer Charlie Fink set to work on the album in January of 2010, holed up in a synagogue in East London. Beginning with a few melodic fragments, a sketch for a 10-minute song that resembled Lou Reed's classic "Street Hassle," and a set of lyrics that were begun on a train from Wales to London, something special eventually came into focus, something markedly different from the songs the band had written before.

Last Night On Earth was co-produced by lead singer Charlie Fink and Jason Lader [Julian Casablancas, The Mars Volta] in Los Angeles. The album features backing vocals by Jen Turner from Here We Go Magic and gospel vocals by the legendary Waters Sisters, who famously provided backing vocals for Michael Jackson's untouchable hit "Wanna Be Starting Something." Elsewhere, the record features Adam MacDougall of The Black Crowes on Moog and Rhodes, and legendary percussionist Lenny Castro.

Fink also notes that the lyrics of the album were heavily influenced by poetry. Last year, he read the work of Frank O'Hara for the first time, falling in love with the poem Having A Coke With You. Speaking of new song "Just Me Before We Met," Fink notes "I wanted [that song] to have a feel of that, or a tempo. Just the notion of it. Having A Coke With You is I think a very romantic poem, and that's the only outwardly romantic song on the album, and so I wanted it to have the same approach."

The album's title is also a nod towards Charles Bukowski's poetry collection The Last Night of the Earth - Fink says he was attracted to the sense of "loser's pride" in Bukowski's work. "In my head," he says, "there is a link between Lou Reed's Berlin, and Bukowski's poetry." The track "Life Is Life" is another Bukowski reference, its title tipping a hat to his poem The Laughing Heart - a poem whose final lines seem to sum up this record quite perfectly: "Your life is your life," it runs. "Know it while you have it. You are marvelous. The Gods wait to delight in you."

Noah and The Whale on tour:

03.15.11 - The Troubadour - Los Angeles, CA
03.21.11 - Bowery Ballroom - New York, NY
03.22.11 - Bowery Ballroom - New York, NY
03.24.11 - Mod Club - Toronto, ON
Not Rated