Camden New Journal - Music: Noah and The Whale | Hard Rock Cafe

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The Review - MUSIC - grooves with RóISíN GADELRAB
Published: 6 August 2009

Noah Fink different

REVIEW: NOAH AND THE WHALE
Hard Rock Cafe

DID Noah and the Whale make a fatal error by using guest female vocalists on their first album but then returning to their all-male line-up last week?
After witnessing their second album preview show at the Hard Rock Café I fear they did. Some bands find a format that works and stick to it. Others evolve with every album and that works for them.
But NATW originally lulled their followers with contradictions – summery folk betraying an underlying obsession with death, illustrated musically by Laura Marling, or some other songstress, accenting frontman Charlie Fink’s dour lyrics with innocent rays.
So they risked wrong-footing the audience when the four-piece ditched female accompanists in favour of the band’s original line-up. They came on strong, with a heavier sound at first, mixing old and new.
Fink’s dry, immobile manner is entrancing, but borders on monotonous without feminine highlights.
Strongest new song of the night came towards the end with album title track The First Days of Spring, while they put their own welcome touch to The Smiths’ Girlfriend in a Coma for the encore.

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