First Days of Spring

The sophomore release from Noah and the Whale. A haunting masterpiece of heartbreak and recovery. "All too rarely, an album arrives whose impact comes not from the clarity with which it communicates, but through the sense of haunted mystification it leaves the listener with: chords, dynamics, lyrics, harmonies and instrumentation all combine to deny you the reassurance of certainty, and send you, instead, tumbling back to an age, before adult rationalization and (supposed) articulacy, of feelings that you experienced, but were powerless to express. Noah and the Whale's second album was inspired by the end of the relationship between their songwriter, Charlie Fink, and the singer Laura Marling...Yet what makes The First Days of Spring the triumph it is is not specificity, but rather its willingness to linger in the fog and accept its embrace. The opening half, which, on songs such as 'I Have Nothing' and 'My Broken Heart,' battles for hope over despair, its sudden bursts of strings or brass suggesting the first shoots of optimism, gives way to the choral explosion on 'Love of an Orchestra.' Thereafter, the one-night-stand on 'Stranger,' the lulling pastoral pop of the ruminative 'Slow Glass' and the deep ambivalence of 'My Door Is Always Open' bear unflinching witness to the reality of healing, setback and renewal. There's a feature-length film to go with the CD, but this album is visual enough. It is also a masterpiece. That, at least, is crystal clear." - Times Online