Noah and the Whale - The First Days of Spring (2009)

1) The First Days of Spring; 2) Our Window; 3) I Have Nothing; 4) My Broken Heart; 5) Instrumental I; 6) Love of an Orchestra; 7) Instrumental II; 8) Stranger; 9) Blue Skies; 10) Slow Glass; 11) My Door Is Always Open

A very beautiful album inspired by a very ugly breakup.

Key tracks: "The First Days of Spring", "Stranger", "Blue Skies"

For I do believe that everyone gets one chance to fuck up their lives

Charlie Fink had his heart broken. Just a few years earlier he and his girlfriend Laura Marling had been singing about happy-go-lucky love in the mini-hit “5 Years Time” and how they’re still going to be merrily together in the future. Then she dumped him. Charlie, being a musician leaning towards the melodramatic in all things romance, reacted accordingly: by writing a completely naked, intimately detailed log of his thoughts and life post-breakup and dressing it up in music.

As far as break-up albums go, The First Days of Spring is ugly. Charlie is bitter, lonely and completely lost – simultaneously yearning for his girlfriend to come back and quietly fuming at how she could leave him. It’s an album full of self-pity and genuine vulnerability, written by a man who was counting on living the rest of his life with someone and then seeing it all fade away suddenly. The tracklist works like a chronological map of his thoughts, from the initial hurt to rebound one night stands and the dash of light and hope of things becoming better near the end of the album… that is, until the very finish and “My Door Is Always Open” where Fink starts turning the tables and lashing out as one last act of desperation, stating he never loved her after all and that she’ll never get a chance with him again.

It’s far from a happy ending. But it’s a very human ending, and together with the other songs it creates a rather interesting break-up album where the supposed protagonist comes off even more awkwardly than the person spoken about. That sets it apart from most albums of its vein and it acts as a testament to Fink’s writing skills that he pulls it off so compellingly even when he doesn’t necessarily cast himself in the best light (intentionally or not).

The words are undeniably a big part of The First Days of Spring but the music has been adapted to follow suite. Noah and the Whale’s debut had a very typically mid-00s kitchen sink indie folk approach to its arrangements, but The First Days of Spring sounds so different to it it’s strange to think they were released in sequence. The First Days of Spring’s arrangements rely on space and a small number of elements used precisely. The full band is still there but each instrument gets room to breathe and play out in all its detail. Whenever the sound suddenly grows – the glorious bombast of the opening title track, the guitar solo ending of “My Broken Heart”, the anthemically optimistic “Blue Skies” that the rest of the album builds up to - it sounds even grander due to its surroundings being so humble. In either case, the songs are gorgeous and moody, as full of finesse and beauty as they are melancholy. The band have matured massively between the debut and this, developing a sense of grace and detail that the debut didn’t yet have, and it shows in the arrangements and how well the music ties in with the words. And I suppose it's some sort of proof of Fink's skills that even though the album is ultimately incredibly self-absorbed, for its duration his fragility is genuinely convincing and resonating. Take "Stranger" - it may be about a rebound one-night stand and it certainly doesn't cast our protagonist in the best of lights, but for its duration it paints a very clear picture of a person going through a very rough patch and being uncertain how to cope with it, and then casts that narrative against a phenomenal, beautifully melancholy song. 

The only real part where the album stumbles is the middle. Between the two sets of four beautiful pieces of melancholy lies the album’s supposed heart, where Fink loses track of his own plot. The two instrumentals are both OK but feel unnecessary – the former is an orchestra tune-up, the latter a beautiful but shallow and brief guitar exercise – and “Love of the Orchestra” is an almost air-headedly happy song that doesn’t really go anywhere and certainly doesn’t fit the context of the rest of the album. The section simply doesn’t work and if it wasn’t there The First Days of Spring would reach near-perfection, because the bitter tale of Charlie Fink’s smashed feelings is otherwise an instantly captivating listen. It’s evocative, emotional, beautiful and lush to listen. Compared to the rest of the Noah and the Whale discography it’s starkly different and like the work of a whole other group – one that’s wiser beyond their years and found their calling somewhere else than where they thought it would be. It’s sad that it took breaking someone’s heart to happen, but Noah and the Whale ended up with their masterpiece because of it.

Rating: 8/10

Physical corner: Standard jewel case. The booklet has a load of photos from the recording sessions but no lyrics; at first I found this a bit odd given the lyrical nature of the record but I suppose a lot of it is rather bare and personal so not having it all written down could be a bit of a shield for Fink. Still a little annoying though.