Album Review: Noah and the Whale Last Night on Earth

Album cover for 'Last Night on Earth' by Noah and the Whale. Photo / Supplied

On their third album, Twickenham band Noah and the Whale is slightly evangelistic in its take on life, and the way one can meander through it.

This is most obvious on the final well-rounded nugget, Old Joy where the simple lyrics "forget the things that get away and don't dream of yesterday" get the full steeple and pulpit treatment - they resound with the rich voices of choirs who sing with hopeful honesty.

It's an album deeply embedded in yesteryear. Wild Thing, for example, could have come out of the same era as a song by the same name, and lead singer Charlie Fink's rustic, sometimes-warbling, sometimes-gruff vocals harp back to the days when everyone wore brown corduroy without being ironic.

He has also cleverly - and not too cleverly - spun the sounds of glockenspiels, piano and African chanting with chunky 80s synths without sounding twee or forced. The result is effortlessly cheerful, and a stark contrast to the melodramatic material the band first came up with. In fact, single L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N and Tonight's the Kind of Night are pop rock at its finest. It makes for an impressive album that allows Fink to prove himself as a prolific writer and clever composer capable of creating tunes that sits comfortably in the slot of pleasant music, often over-shot by grating pop songs, contrived indie rock and boring ballads.

Stars: 4/5
Verdict: Third time, great

- TimeOut