I have to admit I had a laugh at the way a music critic at British rag The Independent recently savaged the frontman of London indie-folk quartet Noah and the Whale: “Charlie Fink has a promising future as every Jack Johnson fans’ eighth-favourite singer and as a supreme irritant to the rest of us.” Why the hate? Well, Fink and company play acoustic guitar, ukelele, violin, glockenspiel, and French horn (and sometimes whistle gaily), and sing smartly about love, death and going to the zoo with maximum amounts of coy charm, and so their melodic fruit doesn’t fall too far from the Belle & Sebastian twee, with maybe a bit of Jens Lekman and the Decemberists thrown in for good measure (not sure I hear anything remotely Jack Johnson, though). And we all know how much some people hate twee. But we all know how much some people adore twee, so if you’re one of them, you’ll want to be front and center at this gig.

Mon., Sept. 29, 8 p.m., 2008