Music: Noah and the Whale

I am a music nerd. Fanatic, whatever you want to call it - I listen to music whenever I can, whether it's on the way to or from school, when I'm doing homework, wherever, whenever. It's pretty bad, actually.

I have a bad tendency to listen to the same song or album on repeat for several hours, until I feel like listening to something else, at which point I just repeat the whole procedure once again.

A band that I have been totally head over heels obsessed with since sometime in April is Noah and the Whale.

They're a British-based band who released their first LP, Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down, in 2008. To begin with, the band consisted of Charlie Fink on vocals, Tom 'Fiddle' Hobden, on, well, the fiddle, Charlie's brother Doug on drums and Matt 'Urby Whale' Owens on bass. The four originally formed the band in 2006, but have since expanded and changed.

Doug left the band to be a doctor, and was so replaced by Michael Petulla, and Fred Abbott later joined the band during their latest album playing keys and occasionally guitar.

Above: Tom Hobden playing the fiddle, Charlie Fink on vocals and guitar - and no I didn't zoom the camera on the pictures.

So far, they've released three albums in total, and it's fascinating listening to the different LPs, as each one has its own, distinct sound.

Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down, the band's first album, was made in the at the time popular nu-folk style - in other words, used a lot of ukulele and flutes. The lyrics are interesting, and each song is very recognizable, yet they all connect to each other in some way.

My personal favorites from this album are Mary, Second Lover, Jocasta and Five Years Time - the latter only because I played it on ukulele (which was how I discovered the band in the first place).

The second album, released in 2009, is called The First Days of Spring.

The difference in sound is incredible. Whilst Peaceful was very happy and upbeat, the second album is so sad. The difference in tone is because of Charlie and his ex-girlfriend, Laura Marling, breaking up. Charlie took it very hard, and he explained in an interview how when they were listening to the whole album, he was crying by the end of it.

The album is both melodically and lyrically beautiful and haunting, and listening to the album always gives me shivers. 'Blue Skies'

Which leads me to the latest album that they've released: Last Night on Earth.

Whilst the first LP was about being in love, and the second about heart break and living with it, the third album is all about moving on. There are several songs that relate to moving on with life, like L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N, and Life is Life. A lot of the lyrics come back to the same theme once again - in Life is Life, for example, the chorus starts like this: "He's gonna change, gonna change his ways, and it feels like his new life can start."

All of the songs in all three albums are amazing, and if you think that they sound good on album, you have to hear them live. I have no words for it, but the experience was definitely something else.

Because they're a smaller band, they were preforming at a local club when I went to see them, and so there weren't any safety barriers - I was literally standing and touching the speakers. And not one meter away from me, stood Charlie Fink. It was pretty awesome. If they're playing somewhere near you are, go. You won't be disappointed, because Noah and the Whale is epic.

xx Emma