Noah & The Whale - Five Years Time / Jocasta (Young and Lost Club)
4/5
Staring October in its autumnal face, the debut single by Wes Anderson obsessives Noah & The Whale incongruously belongs to another season all together. Fit with fiddles, ukuleles and harmoniums, it's got summer written across its drunken forehead in bold black permanent marker. And the release date's not the only inapropos element here.
Lead songwriter and singer, Charlie Fink shares a turn of phrase and lilting voice that is Swedish in everything but location. Scandinavia has for so long had the monopoly on this type of unabashed, joyful indie pop that it's a little surprising this has grown from Kano's same grime-y 'London Town' or Bloc Party's weekend spent in the city. Stripped back to a heavily influenced trad. folk arrangement, there's not a metallic guitar scrape or verbose MC in earshot. Not that I dislike either of those things, but it's refreshing to hear a new band not regurgitating those same Uncut-endorsed 'seminal' acts or riding that bandwagon till the wheels fall off.
Not at all a disparaging comparison, both 'Five Years Time' and 'Jocasta' could quite easily be long-lost Jens Lekman sketches, replete with that very same end-of-summer pathos he peerlessly executes. By no means the finished article yet, Noah &The Whale are at least swimming in different waters and with the backing of Young & Lost, it might not quite take five years for everyone to catch on. As Bernard Berkman boasts in 'The Squid and The Whale', the film from which the band takes their name, "I'm playing the best tennis of my life. Maybe that's an illusion" - you get the feeling there's a lot more to come here.
Watch the video to 'Five Years Time' HERE.
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment