It's not the first time that London-based Noah And The Whale (NATW) have packed out Camden's beautiful KOKO venue. Chart lovers will be familiar with NATW and their top hit of last summer, '5 Years Time', whose catchy chorus had friends and lovers chirping together in the summer sunshine. Their début album, 'Peaceful The World Lays Me Down', was a folk phenomenon, entangling melancholy observations of life and love with upbeat riffs and banjo strumming. Their latest music offering, 'The First Days of Spring', ties in wonderfully with front man Charlie Fink's film directorial début of the same name.
In quite a change, their second album is one of utter sadness and regret which may sound initially off-putting, yet its illustration of these issues is entirely beautiful and captivating. It sounds almost schadenfreude-esque, but it's difficult to find a similar and current record that delivers the message of heartbreak in such a delicate and hauntingly intimate way as NATW have managed.
NATW's set opens with an instant air of fragility that has the crowd on tiptoes, many of whom are trying to shush out the noise of others gossiping. Their sound has undoubtedly developed and matured, moving away from the somewhat child-like qualities of the first album. Tracks from the new album (and indeed some of the older songs, reworked this evening) carry this rawness, not only lyrically due to their thematic and thorny subject matter, but also in musical arrangement. Tracks such as 'My Broken Heart' begin melancholic with the simple strumming of the electric guitar, before ascending into a multi-layered mash-up of instruments so deeply charged with emotion, finally falling at the hands of the soft violin.
This is a theme that runs through some of the tracks from 'The First Days of Spring'. A certain duality is present - a beginning of vulnerability that ends in a climax of musical and emotional enmeshment. There is a great sense of not only hurt and upset, but also of anger, passion and often hope, which is visibly noticeable in the performance of tracks such as 'My Door Is Always Open'. Its beautiful confessional opening has Fink laying his emotions bare before gaining hope and confidence in change, again both reflected lyrically and musically. Despite the obvious issue of sharing such weaknesses, Fink's voice is thick and faultless, reminiscent of Johnny Cash and often full of regret.
It's NATW's finale with title track 'The First Days of Spring' which has the crowd not only speechless, but many shivering with goosebumps. The song's lyrics are built around hope ('Like a cut down tree / I will rise again / and be bigger and stronger than ever before') and it seems fitting to end on this note. The extended crescendo sees Fink down on his knees in an epic entanglement of sounds, drowning in guitar feedback before leaving the stage empty, guitar still humming, and the crowd full of thoughts.
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