White Lies

by Rob McCrae

Lies that don't need perfecting

"From the moment McVeigh’s voice climbs over the crowd at the Hoxton Bar & Grill, with the spectre of Ian Curtis’ sonorous baritone hanging over him, you know that there’s something defiant and godly tearing at his centre."

When White Lies lead singer Harry McVeigh strides on to a stage, he does it so nonchalantly it’s like Jesus striding across the water - performing the same kind of miracles with a guitar cradled in his arms. This band that you’re going to whisper to people at parties about don all black without making it look like a style nuance. It's more like they’re the outsider kids at school, breaking hearts at a gaze and writing soaring lyrics in the back of maths class.

They used to be the band Fear Of Flying, but when they expired into indie dust last summer, White Lies were born with Lazarus-like beginnings. From the moment McVeigh’s voice climbs over the crowd at the Hoxton Bar & Grill, with the spectre of Ian Curtis’ sonorous baritone hanging over him, you know that there’s something defiant and godly tearing at his centre.

They’ve been rooted at the bottom of the sublimely named New Noise tour in May, but by the time it winds up at Stoke Sugarmill, the band should be powering upwards through the dry ice clouds of hype and word-of-mouth alone.

Their first single, 'Unfinished Business', scrolls out for free on their Myspace site and shifts through multiple layers until it’s teetering on the edge of the kind of crescendo that befits an 80s road movie where the lead actor steals a Cadillac and someone to put his arm around. And it’s not even their best song (they only have about five at the moment). Their best song is 'Death' which rests on a fret-changing guitar and an epic plangent vocal like you’re panning back off the hilltop funeral of Michael Hutchence on some pouring rain type tip.

White Lies induce fervour, rifling through your imagination, and that buzz in the pit of your stomach when you know a band have just nailed it all.

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