By: Will Lyon

White Lies are a young 3 piece band from London, who a year ago, evolved from their previous band, Fear of Flying. After almost giving up on music and heading to university, Harry, Jack and Charles must be glad that they stuck with the music, as on the 25th of January 2009 their debut album ‘To Lose My Life…’ hit number 1 in the UK charts.

White Lies have an indie rock and doom sound to their music. This will lead to the question: what is so different about White Lies to Interpol or Editors? Unfortunately, there is little difference in originality between White Lies and these two super indie groups and in some ways White Lies are inferior to them. However, this is not to say that White Lies are a modern substandard copy of bands of the same genre. The music is catchy, fast and melodic. Most of the songs you could easily dance to, and there’s no doubt indie fans will enjoy this record. While the sound is gloomy, it has a commercial cleanliness to which it subtlety reveals the pop hooks. The end result was commercial radio play which ultimately led to album sales success.

Like Editors and Interpol, ‘To Lose My Life…’ is dominated by a thick, solid bass line. While the lyrics and guitar aren’t necessarily creative, they are simple and dominated by reverb. There’s no doubt it sounds good and works well, however, the music does seem to be slightly superficial. The overall sound doesn’t seem to come as naturally to White Lies as it does to Interpol or Editors. This could be because their previous band Fear of Flying was straight out indie rock and had little gloom sound.

Whatever their deficiencies, there’s no doubt that Harry, Jack & Charles have chosen the right profession, rather than starting a university course. Most of the songs would be relatively successful in the singles chart which complements White Lies’ writing skills. There isn’t a weak song on the record and I’m sure indie fans will be looking forward to their next album. In the meantime White Lies have a gruelling tour schedule which they need to keep going until after the summer festivals if they are to be the latest indie band on everyone’s lips. It will be interesting to see how high up the lists they’ll be at the major festivals. They have potential; however they’ve got a long way to go to be as big as bands such as Editors and Interpol.