White Lies is an indie rock trio originating from London, consisting up of Harry McVeigh (vocals, guitar), Charles Cave (bass) and Jack Lawrence-Brown (drums). The band originated in high school by the name "Fear of Flying" before performing under the new moniker "White Lies" once they felt the material written didn't suit the original name.
They released their debut album To Lose My Life... in 2009, right around the decline of the post-punk revival popularity. Despite of that, the album was popular enough to reach #1 in the UK Charts and the band earned a sizable fanbase and started to play in fastivals like Oxygen and Leeds. Critics however weren't as kind, as the type of music they were playing was already being discredited by the press at the time. However, once the band started to evolve into a new wave band on subsequent albums, critical reception started to warm up.
The band has released six studio albums, with their most recent As I Try Not to Fall Apart being released in 2022.
Discography:
- To Lose My Life... (2009)
- Ritual (2011)
- Big TV (2013)
- Friends (2016)
- Five (2019)
- As I Try Not to Fall Apart (2022)
If you've got the tropes to leave, then pick a topic to talk about
- Always Identical Twins: The girls in the Ritual album cover.
- Broken Record: The bridge in "Farewell to the Fairground":"Keep on running / Keep keep on running / There's no place like home / There's no place like home..."
- Epic Rocking: "Time to Give" from Five (7:34) and "Roll December" from As I Try Not to Fall Apart (6:44).
- Foreshadowing: On the chorus of "Time to Give", the lyrics of the outro are sung in the background.
- In the Style of: "Tokyo" for 80's Synth-Pop ballads.
- Leitmotif: "Death" for To Lose My Life..., "Love" for Ritual and "Space" for Big TV.
- Long-Runner Line-up: Type 1, with all of the original members still on the band.
- Minimalistic Cover Art: Five
- New Sound Album: Friends marks the turning point where they started to rely heavily on Synth-Pop while still retaining elements of their previous albums.
- Post-Punk: The band managed to make their name right around the decline of the post-punk revival era with a fairly distinct sound than most of their peers at the time.
- Shout-Out: The "Bigger Than Us" music video is a big shout-out to the climax of the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Doubles as an Out-of-Genre Experience since it stands out a lot compared to the other band's music videos.
- Two First Names: Jack Lawrence-Brown
- Welcome to the Big City:
Word of God states that the title track of Big TV to be about this, referring to a girl with "vacuous ambition" moving to a big city.
