Plumbiferous Media

Eng­lish indie-folk group Noah and the Whale, formed in 2006, released their third and newest LP, Last Night on Earth, early last month. Last Night on Earth is, at least in some parts, a step for­ward from the band’s last two albums, which, while at least some­what pop­u­lar in the band’s home coun­try, have been less than fas­ci­nat­ing. Unfor­tu­nately, while Last Night on Earth is an improve­ment for the group, it’s not enough of one to be truly interesting.

Noah and the Whale seems to value con­stancy above all else - for the vast major­ity of Last Night on Earth, every­thing seems to break down to a few well-defined loops. In the right sort of music, that can work. Unfor­tu­nately, this isn’t really that sort. Instead, it just means that most of the album’s tracks don’t sound all that dif­fer­ent at the end as they do at the begin­ning. There’s sim­ply not enough going on in between.

Dull instru­men­tals could, per­haps, be excused if a lot had been done with the sound. And indeed, a lot has been done with the sound. It’s just not the right sorts of things. Instead, it’s the sort of bad mas­ter­ing that stinks of over-production, like Noah and the Whale might have ben­e­fited greatly from at least son­i­cally stick­ing to their indie roots. 2008’s Peace­ful, the World Lays Me Down was not a good album, but it at least felt like it had some life. Last Night on Earth has no such benefit.

Char­lie Fink’s voice is solid - he can carry a tune, and his voice never becomes irri­tat­ing. Unfor­tu­nately, he never goes much past that point. Through Last Night on Earth, his voice takes on a very con­stant qual­ity. From track to track, it falls into very sta­tic pat­terns - the fine ele­ments vary by track, but the rhythm is essen­tially the same. Com­bined with instru­men­tals that do lit­tle more to dis­tin­guish them­selves, this has the effect of caus­ing the tracks to melt into each other - not to such an extent that the album sounds like one long track, but cer­tainly to a point where it’s not espe­cially clear that Last Night on Earth needed ten tracks for what is, more or less, one idea.

Lyri­cally, Last Night on Earth is at much the same point it is vocally - accept­able and largely banal, but not much else. There are sto­ries being told, but they’ve been told before. If they were improved, told in a dif­fer­ent way, or per­haps even worded dif­fer­ently, this might not be a prob­lem. After all, it’s just about impos­si­ble to be com­pletely unique. But they’re not, and so Last Night on Earth never feels all that inter­est­ing. On the other hand, Last Night on Earth does a decent job match­ing music to lyrics. The soar­ing sound of “And it feels like his new life can start” fits just as well as the slower, almost plod­ding sound of the more melan­choly “He waves good­bye / To the town he grew up in / Knows that he’ll never come back.”

As a whole, Last Night on Earth is a decent album. It’s just not an inter­est­ing album. Noah and the Whale never does any­thing annoy­ing, any­thing out of key, or any­thing dif­fer­ent. As it turns out, that’s the prob­lem. There’s noth­ing here that feels new or inno­v­a­tive. In the end, it’s that, rather than any of the usual sus­pects of tech­ni­cal flaws, grat­ing noise, or mis­guided exper­i­men­ta­tion, that pre­vents Last Night on Earth from being any more than back­ground noise.

This post is tagged 30-39, Noah and the Whale