White Lies - Friends

Apropos White Lies. Auch das Londoner Trio hat mit "Friends" ein neues Album fertig gestellt und anhand der Stimme von Harry McVeigh ist die Band immer sehr schnell zu identifizieren. Stilistisch bleibt sich das Trio ebenfalls treu, auch wenn ihre Mixtur aus Gothic Rock und Post-Punk zusehends in Richtung Pathos-Pop kippt. Aber in Zeiten, in den es die Kaiser Chiefs ins Radio und die Großraumdisco zieht, freut man sich über Gitarre / Bass / Schlagzeug ("Take It Out On Me"), selbst wenn die Synthies eine ordentliche Portion 80er-Jahre-Soße darüber gießen ("Hold Back Your Love"), man denkt, diese würden eher zu a-ha ("Morning In LA") oder Alphaville ("Don't Want To Feel It All") passen oder einige Songs schlicht zu lang geraten sind ("Is My Love Enough").

Das vierte Album der White Lies beinhaltet in der regulären Version 10 Songs in 44 Minuten, Käufer in Japan dürfen sich auf vier weitere Songs ("Friends", "Give A Sign", "What I Need" und "Where Do I Go?") freuen. Und wie es sich für ein Album der 80er gehören würde, gibt es "Friends" auch in Kassetten-Form zu kaufen, diese bietet neben den vier zusätzlichen Liedern noch vier Demo-Versionen. 

Die Plattenkritik geht mit "Friends" jedoch nicht besonders freundschaftlich um:

Friends‘s most memorable song, lead single “Take It Out on Me,” comes when White Lies is less concerned with driving home their theme and simply laying down an infectious hook. While the band deserves credit for attempting to explore more personal songwriting, it only takes a song like “Take It Out on Me” to demonstrate that they remain at their best when they set aside the melodramatic faux-profundity and shoot for the kind of hook-laden, ‘80s-inspired anthems that lifted them to prominence in the first place.(Slant Magazine)

The album’s title apparently stems from a changing attitude to friendship with advancing age, but any opportunity that might have offered up for a treatise on maturity and stability as the band leave their twenties behind fails to materialise. Consequently, Friends is White Lies’ least inspiring record both musically and thematically; they appear to be back in identity crisis mode, and it might not be recoverable this time around.(The Line Of Best Fit)

The turning point comes with the near-six-minute 'Is My Love Enough?' I’m not sure about your love Harry, but three minutes of this song would have been more than enough. It’s the moment when all the fun and energy of the first few songs is sapped, and the album starts dragging. 'Swing' is another example where the band have overstayed their welcome on a song. At five and a half minutes, it feels monotonous, tired and sterile. It could have done with two minutes shaved off, especially when the last one-minute-and-45-seconds contains the same refrains repeated over and over again. By the time the album is finished, you feel exhausted. White Lies sprinted out the blocks for the first 20 metres, and then stumbled and fell over hurdles before collapsing at the finish line.(Drowned In Sound)

    

White Lies in Deutschland:

21.10.16 Frankfurt, Gibson

22.10.16 Osnabrück, Rosenhof

23.10.16 Köln, Die Kantine

30.10.16 Hamburg, Übel & Gefährlich

31.10.16 Berlin, Huxley's Neue Welt

09.11.16 München, Theaterfabrik / Optimolwerke