White Lies
★★★
Night Light
PIAS. CD/DL/LP
Slow-burning seventh album from west London trio.
Ever since they emerged with 2009’s To Lose My Life…, White Lies have had no problem grabbing an audience’s attention. So it proves with Night Light, a record which opens with the thrilling high-velocity space-rock of Nothing On Me, its echoes picked up by the motorik chug of last track In The Middle. In between, however, White Lies can’t always sustain that level of pedal-to-metal interest. Harry McVeigh’s voice occasionally veers towards the heartland rock tendencies of The National, especially on Everything Is OK, where he sings earnestly, “I swore I’d never write a song for you/ But it’s the kind of year where I’m doing things I never do.” From the new wave judder of Going Nowhere to the stadium-prog tumult of I Just Wanna Win, hooks and choruses still pour out of White Lies, but there’s a lack of cohesion that stops Night Light blazing quite as it should.