To Lose My Life...

White Lies’ debut album is a new Mercury Prize pretender

London-bases trio playing alternative indie-rock and consisting of lead vocalist and rhythm-guitarist Harry McVeigh, bassist Charles Cave and drummer Jack Lawrence-Brown was at first called Fear of Flying and performed unserious, almost comic songs without any particular sense. Yet some time after the band’s formation the guys have decided to change their image for a darker one and called themselves White Lies. Releasing two singles Death and Unfinished Business White Lies performed as a warming act for the other teams and then got to work on their debut album. The musicians went to Brussels for that with producers Ed Buller and Max Dingel known for their work on the albums of The Killers and Glasvegas. Finally as it has been planned before the record is released at the end of January to prove a great quality indie-rock collection. At first White Lies wanted to call the album To Lose My Life or Lose My Love as a line from the title track goes but in the end it was shortened to To Lose My Life which never prevented the collection to become a new Mercury Prize pretender.

To Lose My Life reminds of the brightest rock music representatives’ works

Album To Lose My Life was recorded with the participation of a 20-piece orchestra so the compositions cannot be reproached for a too simple accompaniment. As for McVeigh’s vocals they surprise with its wide range and the power combined with sensuality refining each of the ten tracks. Yet throughout the whole record you will not help feeling that it is all something quite familiar: in fact White Lies has taken in all the best from the brightest rock music representatives of all time which cannot but cause comparisons with other collectives. Thus the vocals is sure to be associated with Joy Division and its front man Ian Curtis for someone and practically every song will remind of the creative work of this or that indie-collective of which there have appeared quite a lot on the turn of the centuries. For instance the opening contagious song Death with rather an unexpected ironically optimistic attitude is a bit similar to The Cribs’ works while the rhythm of the title track and the synthesizers of a mid-tempo ballad E.S.T. make one think of Depeche Mode. Yet the new tunes and original lyrics make these songs fresh and topical enough so the more one listens to the album the more the character of White Lies as it is reveals. By the end of the record after the slow compositions Fifty On Our Foreheads and From The Stars, after worrisome Farewell To The Fairground and impressive, solemn Nothing To Give and especially on the deeply thought closer The Price Of Love it becomes clear that these guys do have their own idea of what the real indie-rock should be like.

Enormous potentials and a very promising debut

Despite the fact that White Lies is constantly compared to the colleagues it can by no means be called faceless or having nothing to distinguish it. Most probably the point is that the canons of a good rock music do not play the last role in its creative work and it is exactly why the audience has appreciated this band. The guys are not copiers but good learners and they can consider all who has reached success playing their favorite music as their teachers. Taking into account the fact that To Lose My Life is only the beginning of their creative path we can guess that the trio is still searching for its original style and when the time of the sophomore effort comes the guys will be more sure of their abilities and surprise everybody with a material that would not be similar to anything. Today their debit has already proved that White Lies has enormous potentials and having a wish and a certain portion of insistence it can become itself an example for imitation in a short period of time. On the whole To Lose My Life turns out to be a very promising debut and hopefully White Lies will not disappoint anybody in future.