Noisettes - What's The Time Mr. Wolf?

A critic, regardless of what is being critiqued, is always on the lookout for "it." Something about something that separates it from other somethings in the field. "It" comes in a variety of brands, shapes, and sizes, and can vary within the area the critic is critiquing. Finding "it" for just one or two songs can be pretty hard, let alone an entire album that manages to capture "it." (Honestly, no artist I can think of managed to capture "it" for an entire extended career.) While the squirrelly nature of "it" makes the idea of betting on the Noisettes having "it" five, or even three, albums down the road. However, their first album, What's The Time Mr. Wolf? makes it a perfect one-for-one at the beginning of their career.

The heart and soul of the band is Shingai Shoniwa, the lead vocalist. She has the rare ability to go from tender and lush to raw snarls. Even more rarely, she does it in a way that is completely natural, without sounding contrived or forced. Never once is there a moment where she should have sounded more or less ferocious or docile. Her vocals are so on target that it feels as though she has a precious 6^th sense that is guiding her, rather than pure human tendency. Then to bring it all home she has the proper charisma to make her singing sound alive and eager. She injects the proper amount of humanity to keep the vocals from sounding robotic.

In backing her, the music has a similarly huge and rich sound as TV on the Radio, despite being more rock oriented and less focused on droning noises. The impact, however, is greater than anything TV on the Radio has on record (though live is a different story.) While the vocals carry the album, that doesn't mean the rest of it slacks off. Instead they weave what they have into a great stew that never gets repetitive.

In fact, beyond Shoniwa, the strongest thing about the album is how impeccably the album flows. It is one of the few albums I can think of that has all of the following:

1) It is sequenced in a way that flows naturally from one track to the other.

2) When played in sequence, not only does each track both compliment the others around it, but it stands out as something special on its own.

It seems like such a little thing, yet I can't think of any other album off hand which so perfectly embraces the idea of both "an album" and "great individual songs." It all sounds like the Noisettes, it is varied, it holds together as an album, and each and every song on the album is fantastic while making the other songs around it better.

There are so many other things here that could be discussed in length to extol the virtues of what the Noisettes have done on What's The Time Mr. Wolf? such as the huge sing-a-long choruses or the way this is one of the rare albums where one might be tempted to use the repeat button on a CD player. Needless to say, this album is highly recommended. And just maybe the Noisettes can be one of the rare bands to make "it" stick five albums down the road.