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album reviews

White Lies



To Lose My Life 5 ( 2009 )
Death / To Lose My Life / A Place To Hide / Fifty On Our Foreheads / Unfinished Business / E.S.T. / From The Stars / Farewell To The Fairground / Nothing To Give / The Price Of Love

How many bands do we need trying to be Joy Division and/or Echo and the Bunnymen and completely missing the point of what made both said bands great in the first place? Where is White Lies ambition? Where are White Lies classic songs that break boundaries and take risks? We've songs that seem a bit doomy, but that's certainly a very simplistic view to take of Joy Division or Echo and the Bunnymen. Both bands had humour and romance, yes they did! Anyway, White Lies instead present us the perfectly acceptable likes of 'A Place To Hide'. The drums rattle away, the bass is in the right kind of low register and the singer sounds suitably miserable yet without having any personality at all to really get you convinced in him. The song itself is pretty good though and would have been enough to convince a thirteen year old me, yet what did I know then? Heck, I was busy listening to Fine Young Cannibals and Simple Minds. 'Is This The Price Of Love' goes the catchy chorus of, erm, 'The Price Of Love'. I don't really care, that's the thing. God, even Interpol do this kind of stuff better and they're average.

'A desperate fear flows through my blood', sings the bloke from White Lies. It's not quite 'Hunting by the rivers, through the streets, every corner... abandoned too soon, set down with due care.' 'Death' sees witness to snappy bass lines, swish keyboards lines - the singer does his very best Ian McCulloch impersonation and there you have it. Yet another song without much of a memorable hook or reason to be. NME told us 'White Lies' were one of the big tips for 2009. Inevitably, all the other UK press followed like sheep to the slaughter. What else? 'Farewell To The Fairground' happens to be my favourite track here because suddenly they almost seem different and almost seem like what we can only imagine... is themselves. There is power in this group of musicians undoubtedly, so it's a shame they appear to lack the imagine to put this potential power to good use.

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