Rockin' Our Turntable: Noah and the Whale

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 16, 2008 5:17PM

It takes a certain talent not to come off as being to precious or twee when tackling the orch-pop genre, and too many bands rely on the reflexive actions of the listeners responding to familiar cliches to carry them through. Or they just construct epic songs with barely picked guitars and odd instrumentation randomly dropped in.

Well, Noah and the Whale do commit one of the above crimes -- their name is based on the movie The Squid and the Whale and its director Noah Baumbach -- but they wisely side-step many of the other pitfalls they could have stumbled into on their debut Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down. The band keeps most of its songs right between the 3-4 minute mark, and wisely choose to fill that time with hooks, poppy guitars, and just the right amount of strings. They mix the baroque with the folk to construct sing-alongs like the minimalistic hand-clap driven "5 years Time" and giddy rush of "Jacosta," a tenderly urgent song that pushes itself forward and carries you in its wake.

When things slow down, they still manage to keep it interesting. "Give A Little Love" steadily throbs along until the instruments slow down, drop out, and then slowly rebuild to a triumphant horn filled crescendo. And the pastoral "Rocks And Daggers," tricks you into settling back for what seems like a relaxing ride until the song bounds from black and white into technicolor two minutes in. It's akin to using that ol' alt-rock trick of quiet to loud, only this time the volume comes from violins and shuffling drums. The trick the band pulls off is keeping such simplicity interesting, and it's what makes their debut such a pleasantly surprising success.

Noah and the Whale will play September 26 at The Empty Bottle, 1035 N Western, 10 p.m., $10 advance / $12 day of show, 21+