The Airportline: Observations

Noah And The Whale – First Day Of Spring (Mercury)

Broken love, a broken heart and broken dreams are fundamental concepts in human existence. They are emotional states that fill our best art with emotions because they are the core emotions in life. I think Noah and The Whale singer Charlie Fink is very aware of this. He is not afraid to state the obvious, to dress his songs up in clichés and simplistic descriptions of a broken heart. He knows it’s not about what you say but how you say it. He does occasionally put it beautifully also lyrically, he does, but as a listener you need not to be too concerned with some perhaps less novel descriptions of heartache. Noah and The Whale approached the need for love through beautiful orchestrations and a light-hearted melodies already on their surprisingly over looked folk pop debut album Peaceful The World Lays Me Down. These are feelings we all know but writing about them have proven to be difficult for many artist. There are those who claim that also Noah and the Whale can’t do this. I believe that these people are misguided and outright wrong. But as this is a matter of love and not hate I will not indulge in mudslinging. The topics Noah and The Whale circle around as heart breaking vulchers is how to move on from a broken relationship. It’s a magnifying glass into the feelings that this inevitably sad event so often lead to. This kind of albums often tend to become too navel gazing, too enforced, and too dramatically pompous. But when it is done with honesty, the most important ingredient in art that so many seem to forget, it can also catch you off guard, make you re-evaluate, think about things, and maybe face some truths that you were too afraid to face before. When art can hold your hand in these moments it can have both devastating and exhilarating effects.

I’ve talked a lot about Noah and The Whale since I heard their debut album and argued that it was one of the finest album of 2008. I always struggled to explain what it exactly was that made this London folk orchestra, who previously wore ridiculous colorful hipster wear, special. What made them hit my heart over and over while my surroundings shook their shoulders and moved on to something different. It can be frustrating to hear something that touches your soul while other people are unmoved. But I kept pedaling my bike over the Amstel river with Charlie Fink proclaiming that ‘if you give a little love you can get a little love of your own’ over piano and hand claps in Give a Little Love and thought that it was magical every time.

Perhaps it is my genuine interest for lost love and loneliness that immediately hit me when I listen to Noah and The Whale. Fans of Jens Lekman will recognize the upfront lyrics and the sincerity that I find rare among young Londoners. Its unfortunate that their colorful clothes and the, in indie circles, well covered relationship breakdown between Charlie Fink and Laura Marlin took focus from the bands music. When Laura went of on her own, becoming the poster girl for the new London folk movement with her pretty but ultimately somewhat disappointing (I know there are people that do not agree with this statement) debut Alas I Cannot Swim people assumed that Noah And The Whale would amount to nothing without her. Instead the vocalist break-up pushed the bands music into something much darker and emotionally engaging than before. At first glance it was quite a big step, but if you keep your eyes close to the lyrics you will still recognise the themes and sounds from their debut. Outstanding songs on the debut album such as Give A Little Love and Hold My Hand As I’m Lowered already touched the theme of lost love which on their 2009 output The First Days Of Spring bloomed into a haunting and captivating journey through the effects of love.

The First Days of Spring is an album that hurts to listen to, from the slow starting The First Say Of Spring, with its build up and crescendo end, to the album closing song, My Door Is Always Open, the band takes a long and sparsely orchestrated ride into a landscape that from time to time beat with some hope but ultimately still is in knee deep in mourning. The fluctuating emotional states occasionally becomes angry, occasionally filled with a feeling that it was for the best, occasionally portraying the feeling loneliness, and other times drawing a line and moving on. It is like looking into a journal where someone has written down his thoughts without editing, without hiding his emotions in distancing metaphors.

‘and its been a while since I starred at the stars’ Fink sings over a lonely guitar and sparse piano keys in Our Window as the world looks different while reflected in a lost promise. In stand out track Blue Skies Fink starts out boldly stating that ‘this is a song for anyone with a broken heart’. I’ve sent it to friends who have understood just how he feels. ‘This is the last song I will write while you’re even on my mind’ he continues as the song develops into an anthem celebrating the forward motion that life always needs to have. Like Alvy Singer says in Woody Allen’s master peace Annie Hall, ‘relationships are like sharks, they have to keep moving forward otherwise they’ll die’.

I’ve been surprised in my own life of the heavy impact, and the brutal loneliness that can come out of the end of a relationship. There are many artists that try and put these feelings into the music they make. But while so many choose to write about these feelings through metaphors or poetic verse Noah And The Whale goes straight on the pure emotions, and combines this with Charlie Finks voice that sounds like its been frozen in that exact moment when a relationship falters, when both parties realizes that all roads that leads forward are paved with sadness and disappointments. Although I don’t recognize myself in the stories of the album, I feel the emotions that are dealt with in these songs, I understand what Charlie fink and his voice is singing about and I can feel the honesty that travels through the songs on this album.

Broken love, a broken heart and broken dreams will always be important and difficult concepts to write and make music about, Noah and the Whale shows that disclosing honesty and dressing it up with well orchestrated pop numbers is an excellent way of doing it. The First Day of Spring might not make you smile, or turn a gray day into sunshine, but it might be the best sad album about lost love that I have heard since Ryan Adams album Heartbreaker and Red House Painters Songs For A Blue Guitar. It might make you realize that there are more people than you that go through heartache. It can be a comforting realization at times.