Coming of Age
2011 was the year it all came good for Noah & The Whale. Three albums in, they cast off their twee, folky roots and stepped up to become proper pop stars, of the kind we don’t often see these days. Parts of this record remind me of the Boomtown Rats, of ABC, of The Cure and The Jam (in their latter days) and Feargal Sharkey (after he left the Undertones). And that’s before we even start on the Lou Reed and Supertramp influences. It’s a record that owes so much to the music of the 70s and 80s… that I can’t believe how young these whippersnappers actually are.
Old Joy
Oh, well, the world never seemed bigger…
…begins the “remember when we formed our first band and played in the school assembly?” autobiography of ‘Give It All Back’. It’s only when we hit the second line that Charlie Fink calls me ‘granddad!’:
…than the summer of ’98…
’98!? Ninety-friggin’-eight? These guys were playing in junior school assembly while I was hitting my late 20s? Now I know how old Bryan Adams must have felt while I was busy singing along to his teenaged anthem that took place three years before I was born.
Hope I Die Before I Get Old…
Good record then, but, damn, it ages me…
