Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down

这张《Peaceful The World Lays Me Down》是来自英国伦敦的独立流行乐团Noah and the Whale的首张正式专辑，在本周的英国流行音乐专辑榜中，本张专辑首周上榜，空降第五位，算是一个相当出色的成绩了。 　　Noah and the Whale由Charlie Fink（主唱/吉他/口琴/夏威夷四弦琴）、Tom Hobden（小提琴）、Urby（脚踏式风琴/贝斯）、Laura Marling（伴唱）和Doug Fink（鼓）等几位成员组成。早在去年九月，Noah and the Whale乐团就通过Young and Lost Club厂牌推出了他们的首支单曲《5 Years Time》。今年1月，乐队又推出了他们的第二支单曲《2 Bodies, 1 Heart》，同样得到了歌迷的好评。又经过了半年多的酝酿，Noah and the Whale终于推出了这张完整的专辑。从第一首《2 Atoms In A Molecule》开始，这张专辑就透出欢快清新的民谣气息，在炎热而容易令人烦躁的夏天，这样的歌儿是很容易博得听众好感的。上口的旋律、主唱 Charlie Fink挺有特点的声音、富有活力的小提琴、轻松的木吉他、舒缓的弦乐、随意的口哨...都是这张《Peaceful The World Lays Me Down》吸引人的地方，喜欢旋律化的Indie Pop和民谣的歌迷们应该会喜欢这张专辑。 Noah and the Whale aren't doing anything hugely unique on their debut album Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down. You can hear bands playing a quite similar brand of strummy, plummy folk-pop on indie film soundtracks, and there are quite strong threads of Belle & Sebastian, Arcade Fire, the Magic Numbers, and a hundred other popular indie poppers running through their sound. This familiarity could breed contempt very easily but the band manage to escape relatively unscathed and come up with an album that adds to the canon instead of just being a pale exercise in copycat-ism. Credit singer/songwriter Charlie Fink for writing a batch of catchy songs with real emotional depth and singing them convincingly without ever coming close to overselling the emotion. Laura Marling deserves some credit too for providing lovely and absolutely essential backing vocals throughout (Fink produced her acclaimed debut record Alas I Cannot Swim), so does the band for providing subtle but dramatic backing at every turn. The core band of guitars, keys, and violins is accompanied by horns on most tracks and producer Eliot James is adept at blending all the instruments and creating dynamics. Without a light and agile touch, a track like "Give a Little Love" could have turned into a mawkish mess as the song swells to its emotional conclusion; as it stands, it becomes a heart-swelling moment of beauty instead. The group also do happy as well as they do heavy, for every melancholy tune like "Second Lover" there's a bouncy, smile-inducing song like "5 Years Time" that has a feeling of joy that's hard to convincingly convey in song without sounding trite and phony. Noah and the Whale never sound phony and they never feel forced, they also never seem in thrall to their influences. Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down could have been all kinds of terrible but instead turns out to be an album that fans of the bands mentioned earlier, plus fans of intelligent and heart-felt indie pop, should probably investigate.