Noah Gundersen, a singer songwriter from Seattle has delivered a record with emotional lyrics of fear, decay, love, and death. The music is full of contrasts and colour ranging from quiet lyrics with simple acoustic guitar/piano to full bodied crashing guitar riffs.

We have seen a couple of solo acoustic gigs for far this year, ‘White Noise’ is  however, a full on band album, so quite a contrast to what we witnessed at the solo live shows.

The first track 'After All' leads us in with slow haunting echoing vocals building to a crescendo of fuzzy electric guitar. The pace builds up on the second track 'The Sound' with driving contrasting rhythms.
' Cocaine, Sex and Alcohol' is melancholic with simple piano and strings. Sad lyrics “get me out of a life” before the track changes to a neurotic jazzy sound mix.

'Fear And Loathing' is a ballad about an American small town in decay. Sung with an acoustic guitar it reminds me of Springsteen in Tom Joad days. The track ends with an earie sound of nothingness, like being in the wilderness.

'New Religion' is a gentle ballad with beautiful piano and heartfelt lyrics “all I want is something to love, all I want is someone to love” and “a freedom to dream”. The volume slowly cranks up as Noah’s voice and the rest of the band build to a passionate finale. 'Dry Year'  has quiet thoughtful vocals with gentle acoustic guitar. “sometimes the world feels like a building on fire, but everyone’s ignoring the smoke. You would vote for a comedian. He would comfort you with a joke”. The song finishes with the sound of gentle rain.

It’s a perfect finish to the album with 'Send The Rain (To Everyone)';  “Send the rain, send my love to everyone”. Noah’s soft voice breaking into falsetto. Words about love and death with a superb finale and slight echoes of Sigur Ros.

Watch the video for 'The Sound' 

Website

Ken

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