Recently I was introduced to a British Folk Band named Noah and the Whale through their song "5 Years Time". Me being a music lover, if I hear a song I like, I like to download every album by the band to see how the rest stack up. As so far I've only listened to the first album, entitled "Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down", I'll give it a review and then expand to the other albums as I listen to them.
So, in all honesty: dissapointing. Now I've never been the kind of guy to expect that every song on an album to be just like the one song everybody knows from it, but I didn't expect that most of the album was just sort of... Boring. Seriously, listen to 5 Years Time. That's a great song right there. It's upbeat, catchy, super fun and really sweet. No, it's not going to change anybody's life, and it's not trying to be deep and meaningful. That's alright, a song doesn't necessarily have to be. As long as it's trying to be genuine, a straight forward sappy love song like this can quickly turn from boring and cheesy to sweet and really great to listen to. To do this properly, the potentially cheesy lyrics have to be met with a proper arangement that fits the tone of what's being sung and given a creative melody and harmonys. This song does that quite well.
Unfortunately, the rest of the album is not this fun and upbeat. There are maybe 2 other songs that are upbeat, with the rest just slow, churning acoustic ballads filled with minor chords and harmonys. The melodies are soft and grounding, instead of the floaty, excited lyrics of the one really good song off the album. Admittedly, the lyrics are poetic and well written, but it's lost in some pretty generic chord structures and rythms that you've all heard before, and heard better. Look, I hate to be the guy to tell you to only listen to one song. Seriously, I can't stand that the only song people care about by Fun. is "We Are Young" when they have other really great song, and their best is easily "Why Am I The One?", but this album is really not all the great. Give it a listen to, maybe you're into this kind of stuff, but I was expecting an upbeat and happy album and what I got was an overly grounded and kind of a downer. Give "5 Years Time" a listen and download that song. The rest, honestly, just forget them. You'll listen to them once and then skip through them to get to the good song.
