The First Days of Spring is the second album by Noah and the Whale - the follow-up to the london-based quartet's top 5 gold-selling 2008 debut Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down. This is a beautiful album. moving rather than maudlin, uplifting rather than depressing. Instrumental #1, all strings and brass and piano, is like the overture to a David Lean epic, not least because it leads straight into the mighty, hot-stepping, choir-driven Love of an Orchestra.