| Profile : Noel Titheradge | I'm a third-year English student also dangerously mixed up in the heady world of student journalism. Whatever keeps him off drugs. Likes: The Rescue Rooms, summer sojourns in Wollaton Park, doing 'Greggs Four' – it's like Campus 14 but with cakes, pasties and pizza slices instead of pints. Dislikes: Students from London who think of Nottingham as the bleak north, the city's obsession with cheese music, the myth of Nottingham's 4:1 girl/boy ratio – its just not true, trams – what's wrong with buses! |
It's a cause for some relief that relations between ourselves and our Norwegian cousins have improved in the last thousand years: now, rather than invading us with unpleasantly hirsute Viking warriors, they take a subtler and more appealing approach, plying us instead with excellent pop. Hot on the heels of Annie, Sondre Lerche is the second fine export to hit our shores this year. The slight and unassuming Lerche mines nostalgic 60s Euro-pop and Andy Williams-like crooning effectively and with pleasing results, as most obviously exemplified by an audacious a capella rendition of Bing Crosby's 'Moonlight Becomes You' that completely silences his – unfortunately rather small – crowd.
 | | Sondre Lerche (laid back) |
Lerche's own material also displays these characteristics, particularly 'Mother Nature', performed with the aid of crowd backing vocals, and encore 'Sleep On Needles', which displays somewhat more energy but still retains a strong sense of pop classicism. However, like all such music the 'nice' can all to easily become inconsequential background music; a pit into which Sondre Lerche falls on several occasions. This failing is particularly acute because he's performing solo tonight and the songs sometimes lack sonic variety, however pretty they may be. With all that said, though, he has a lilting delivery that never grates and a good vocal range, both crooning and hitting the high notes to equal effect. Lerche is an angular but vulnerable-looking character who also benefits greatly from being quite endearing in his voluminous between-song banter; with his dry humour and understated delivery, it's hard not to like him as a person and ultimately to wish him all the best on his voyage into pop's Valhalla. With a slightly more varied palette (and a bigger budget), Sondre Lerche could well be more than just a pleasantly diverting live experience. |
