Noah And The Whale - Last Night On Earth

Noah and the Whale - Last Night On Earth


Noah and the Whale suffered from what I like to call far-too-catchy-first-single-syndrome. When Five Years Time topped the charts in 2008, it was too far removed from the rest of the album.


The cheesy hook from the single alienated the majority of the Folk/Pop crowd and semi-serious nature of the rest of the album didn’t satisfy the people who bought it off of the back of Five Years Time.
The band’s first album, ‘Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down’ was both a commercial and economic success, but for their second album they completely changed their musical styles. The band dropped the childish clapping and catchy chants in favour of serious songs with narrative and emotion.



Although the second album was defiantely one from a more musically developed band, it lost some of the charm of the first album. It’s not that the album was bad, on the contrary it was an excelent album, it just strayed too far from the niche of charming folk/pop that the band carved out for itself and ran in to something that felt self-indulgent.
The second album was made into a feature length film, a kind of meta-music video, that was received fairly well, but for me is a sign of a band taking its self far too seriously.

Last Days on Earth brings the band to a comfortable spot in-between the cheesy first album and the serous second album. They have managed to keep the hooks and chants that made them what they are without sacrificing their desired musical direction.

Let's take a look at a few songs from the album.


L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.



The song manages to hold complex themes like the better songs off the band’s second album, being the loneliness that surrounds a barmaid and a writer, but doesn’t lose the fun charm that made the first album so great.

Still a complex and musically distinct song like ‘Stranger’ from First Days of Spring, but with an awesome hook that makes it so much more fun to listen to.

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. is by far the best song on the album, and is endlessly re-listenable.

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Tonight’s The Kind Of Night

Not every song on the album is a strong as L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N., Tonight’s The Kind of Night conforms to NATW’s classic style of upbeat folk/pop, but for some reason comes out unbearably average sounding.

For all the pep and tension and release, the song falls flat in emotion. Charlie Fink has an incredible talent for writing songs that inspire feelings in people. Tonight’s the kind of night completely fails to do this.

It’s not that this is a bad song, the problem is that for a band that have built them a reputation for emotionally engaging and clever songs, this is a bit of a let-down.
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Old Joy
Old Joy makes more sense if you know some of the history between Noah and the Whale’s Charlie Fink and singer-songwriter Laura Marling.
Laura used to be Charlie’s boyfriend, he produced her first album, Noah and the Whale provided all the instrumentals and the bands second album First Days of Spring is almost exclusively about Charlie’s broken heart.
Old Joy is one of those wonderful songs where you can almost feel the writer’s sadness. The song is about slowly getting over Laura, and is a great example of how emotionally involving NATW’s songs can be.
With a strategic placing of very last on the album, it brings the whole thing to a wonderful conclusion. A testament to a band having fun but without losing their integrity.
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All in all the album is pretty good. It has a nice mix of upbeat and slow songs and works as a whole. It’s not as good as Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down but it’s better than First Days Of Spring.
You can pick up the album from here, or download any of the tracks from the widget below.
Be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think of the album or NATW in general.






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